stable-based

I'm always interested in any Linux distributions based on Debian Stable. There haven't been many. I've run Mepis (a KDE distro) and SaliineOS (an Xfce distro) installations, but neither of those currently has a release out yet that's based on the current Stable. I've looked at live sessions of Kwheezy, which comes with KDE, but that new distro ships with too much stuff for my tastes.

I saw an announcement about the release of Point Linux 2.2, which is based on Debian 7 (Wheezy), the current Stable (here's a link to the release notes). Point Linux features the MATE desktop; I don't miss GNOME 2, and I'm not at all interested in MATE.

Right now, I've got CrunchBang 11 installed; that one's also based on Wheezy. I think that CrunchBang might be the best of all the Stable-based distros out there right now, but I haven't been running it for very long yet. It's another one-man distro that focuses on one environment (in this case, the Openbox window manager, which I really like). You never know if it'll still be around in five years, or what it'll be like then; CrunchBang was based on Ubuntu just a few years ago.

It seems to me that, ultimately, every Stable-based, one-man distro falls short in one way or another. For folks who want Debian Stable, the best option continues to be: Read the Debian documentation, do your homework, take the time to do a "real" Debian installation, and keep good notes.

In the end, "straight" Debian is well-worth the extra effort.