esperal

Both are a good as entry points ! But from what I have experimented with my friend and family that are also transitioning to Linux, Mint (Cinnamon version) is the best entry point you could dream of. They took the best from Debian and Ubuntu (not snaps obviously :p), and their desktop environment (Cinnamon) really does a great job at making you feel at home from the start when coming from Windows. Everything works out of the box.

Yes ! I don’t get why debian always seems to be forgotten outside of its server use. I have been running it for 2 years now (homelab, laptop and desktop).