There are great setup guides for Debian, as well as a full security / hardening guide. It's a bit more work but very rewarding to learn - and ultimately it's so well documented the experience is more like following a cook book than having to invent or figure things out yourself. 

chairman_pretense

If you can't find info on Debian, all the Ubuntu information works for Debian too.

chaoticalHeavy

very interesting! sounds it might be worth battling through some initial complexities of Debian to get to a more stable (+secure) experience