You don’t have to be a beginner to love Mint. I am very happy that they are putting more energy into the Debian edition. I’ve tried lots of other distros over the years, and I am just comfortable in Mint.
It’s a version of Mint they have been maintaining in case Ubuntu ceases to be a desirable base for the distro. With things like over reliance on Snaps, and advertising paid security updates in the terminal, it seems like it won’t be very long until that point is reached. I love Mint, but dislike those specific aspects it brings from Ubuntu, so I have found LMDE to be the perfect solution.
If your budget is tight, get a used/refurb, but recent model Thinkpad (T or P series) from EBay. Install Linux Mint (I say Debian Edition, since that is Mint’s future). It comes with LibreOffice preinstalled. You may want to install standard Microsoft fonts, which aren’t included for licensing reasons. You can search for how do do this.
Before switching to LMDE, I did try just using Debian with Cinnamon, thinking it would be pretty much the same experience. I did not really enjoy the experience. There were too many niceties missing that I had taken for granted with Mint. I wasn’t interested in spending my time hunting down all the tweaks and packages to make those changes.
I frequently end up with magnet links stuck at “downloading metadata”. If I convert the magnet link to a torrent, it works fine. It is a real annoyance about the otherwise great qbittorrent.
It’s never justified, but it also feels gross to join this chorus of condemnation against Hamas, when it’s so much louder and widespread than any condemnation of official Israeli policies which have had the same or worse material effect for decades.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” -Anatole France