I have been waiting for the official Debian Mate and it is now out. I am keeping Point Linux on my laptop, but I also installed Debian Jessie 8 (Mate) and will be using that as my main Distro from here on. I used the graphic installer. It was a bit harder than the Ubuntu installer but not unmanageable. If you are interested here is the download from Softpedia. It is a direct link, which is nice as the Debian site is a bit confusing.
I found the biggest thing with the graphical installer is if you single click it takes you right back to were you are, and if you double click it takes you to the page to change the install. You have to double click to pick the partition you want to install too, double click to format that partition and to set root. Otherwise is was pretty straight forward.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Linux-Di ... l#downloadI also found a nice tutorial to use to get things working in Debian after installation. It is for XFCE but works for Mate too.
http://linuxgeekar.blogspot.com/2015/05 ... ebian.htmlDebian starts in root by default, so this will help you set up your user account and give yourself sudo access. I would advise stable Jessie repos, not the testing repo unless you really know what you are doing. Also there is no auto login. I tried to find a good tutorial for auto-login, but did not. The tutorial will also show you how to add non-free and contrib repos, update firmware, install a firewall, manage networks, and add codecs and fonts.
I also added the Mozzilla build repo for Firefox, Seamonkey and Thunderbird as Ice Weasel and Ice Dove are included by default, though Chromium is included in the repo.. I also have the Chrome repository if you want Chrome. There is also Palemoon and Slimjet, if you want a Firefox or Chrome alternative. You have to download them and install them with gdebi, you also have to update them yourself as they do not have official Linux repos.
i am certainly no Linux expert, and am a GUI guy, so it was a bit of a challenge, but I accomplished the install without major problems.