Debian

Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system with a focus on stability. A great package management system makes it simple to maintain a number of installations. You can choose from three releases of varying stability: the software packages included in the stable release have been tested thoroughly and are ideal for a server environment, whereas the testing or unstable have more recent versions of software which can have significant bugs. Ironically, Debian's unstable release is more stable than many other distributions' final releases.

Debian/ZM installation notes

thorough Debian/ZM installation guide using a zoneminder debian package which requires unstable ffmpeg/libavcodec2/liblame0

yet another Debian/ZM installation guide - package selection and compiling ZM from source (without ffmpeg) in a few quick steps

/etc/init.d/zm script - slightly modified from the original to correctly echo output on debian