Debian is my favorite Linux distribution. To make life a little easier for myself, I decided to give Kubuntu a chance to become my main OS on my Lenovo Thinkpad X220. I think it's pretty swell.
Note: You may want to give some of the other Ubuntu flavors a try, such as Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Mate, or Xubuntu (with XFCE). See this webpage of Ubuntu's flavors.
Everything simply works. My favorite configuration of the middle button is to click-hold it and use the touch point for scrolling--this is its default configuration! A wide variety of input device configuration options are available in the GUI tool. If you want to disable the track pad entirely, that's easy to do:
larz@laptop:~$ xinput -list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Integrated Camera id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ ThinkPad Extra Buttons id=13 [slave keyboard (3)]
larz@laptop:~$ xinput --disable 11
Beyond this, I don't see the need for any hardware-specific installation notes, tips, or tricks. I find this refreshing and laudable.