If you really like Debian-based systems, it is possible to get paid support for Debian, albeit through a third-party consultant firm. Debian even provides a list of such service providers on its Web site. Of course, with a third party you have to do some (a lot of) due diligence, checking of references, etc.

I've personally had much more luck with Debian stable than with Ubuntu server on critical machines. Some of this was for the reason mentioned upthread (buggy packages, broken default configs, etc.). I still do use Ubuntu in a professional environment, but for end user desktops and not for servers.

That being said, if you really like Ubuntu, go for it. LTS is certainly not a bad choice; I think there are better ones, but that's my own opinion.

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I knew a guy with a startup company and he was intent on rolling out Ubuntu and he didn't give a flying penguin about things like security, stable, hardened. He just wanted the latest bells and whistles, even if it meant having setbacks, breaches and just plain weird bugs.