I did install some Linux and never got much knowledge of how it works. When Linus begin to write it, it was something for hackers and servers, and for some rebels - my case. I was sick of Windows, but I was in college, out of time, and had to give up of learning Unix like systems and buy an iMac. End of story, I am newbie in Linux until today, but I have some experience, that's why I decide to give you my opinion.
Ubuntu is the name of Linux for ordinary people, it has by far the best documentation and a lot of communities around the world. It's the most adopted distribution. But I got no good stories to tell about Ubuntu and me. I only could do one single successful installation so far in my whole life, in my kid's pc gamer. I build that PC piece by piece with mostly AMD parts, and installed Windows 10 (he demand it). It was not working good, I said to my kid - it's Windows fault... he wont believe me, so I attached a SSD and installed Ubuntu for himi to try... it's real! Windows sucks! BUT, my user stop working and I have struggled with drivers, Ubuntu won't install the latest GPU driver no matter what! Ubuntu is like this. And when this kind of deep trouble happens, it's difficult to get an answer from the community, I have two opened in AskUbuntu! The size don't implies in quality!
Debian is the one I liked more, it's not so pretty, but it is smart. Got some similar problems as Ubuntu, but I have to say it has been easier to solve, maybe I am getting smart, maybe Debian is a better distribution than Ubuntu, but I will bet in the last option for you. Ubuntu and Debian are very similar, many things you do the same way. My advice is to you to "try before install" both of these one.