I have been using linux for many years. I have tried almost all distributions Arch, Manjaro, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, openSUSE etc.
After years and countless distro hopping I have come to the conclusion that Debian is my favorite distro. Arch still resides on a disk partition, but Debian is my daily distro for all my computing needs.
Now with Debian 12 I would suggest even beginners to leave Ubuntu and try Debian straight away if they don't mind spending a few hours setting it up on their computers.
If a beginner wants to install a distro themselves and doesn't want to look for help online, Ubuntu is still a very good choice.
The new Debian installer is great. Allows for easy installation in a range of apartment configurations. There is also the option of skipping the installation of a desktop environment, thus offering total system control and customization to suit each user's preferences.
The resulting operating system is minimalist, (comparable to the simplicity of Arch), but very stable. Upgrades aren't as problematic as they are with Windows, and by installing apps via Flatpak you'll be able to have regularly updated apps upstream.
Personally, I like to install a "bare" Debian and slowly add what I need to it.
For those who haven't tried Debian yet, this latest release is a great distribution and allows you (for the first time) to have the firmware as part of the installation.
It is still useful to edit /etc/apt/sources.list to add the contrib and non-free entries, even though there is now a non-free firmware entry.
If all of the above doesn't "bake" you, try the live ISO
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/12.0.0-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/
