These days I prefer reading manuals and documentation to get the most basic version of anything running and then build up on it. If anything goes wrong, I go to stackoverflow

Just use the live installer, it includes the calamares installer which is as simple as installation in mint.

Wdym not user friendly? I use Debian everyday and the stuff you were talking about dates back to the bullseye days.

Trixie is a lot more user friendly and even includes the calamares installer now which is a GUI installer that’s similar to mint’s one

It also comes with gnome software and you can enable flatpaks with 2 commands. I don’t see how that’s not user friendly in any way.

Of course nonfree software is a different case but you can always use snap or flatpak for it

Debian is a stable operating system and as user friendly as mint once you get past the installation.

Mint also uses a Ubuntu base but Debian has better quality of packages and is less likely to break.

LMDE is also a good option in this case

Most folks I know don’t know the existence of security updates or Windows 10’s EOL so they just keep using it. Even if I told them about the EOL their pcs wouldn’t run Windows 11 nor they’re interested in Linux