After some experience with Linux Mint, I gathered the courage to try another distro. I’d like to turn an old laptop into an IPTV receiver plus FTP/OpenVPN/HomeAssistant server with occasional desktop use. I first installed Windows 11 just in case my family needs to use it (it fucking sucks, the built-in PS/2 keyboard doesn’t work half the time but that’s an issue for later) but now I’ll be turning it into a dual-boot setup with Debian as the primary option. Please give me some encouragement, I’m really afraid of new things.
KDE Plasma is very nice if you come from Windows and don’t mind an environment that’s somewhat heavy on performance - personally, I think it’s the closest, modern Windows-like experience. XFCE is very lightweight, but not very modern, as far as I remember.
Don’t forget, you can also install multiple environments and then pick one from your login screen; that way you can try them all and see what fits best