IDK if thats true in 2024. Debian 12 isn't much harder to setup than mint or Ubuntu, and the version of gnome it ships with is perfectly fine. I'm not a beginner anymore, so maybe there's something I glossed over.
Oh wait, I just remembered the thing I glossed over. Needing to install sudo would definitely throw a beginner for a loop. (Iirc, you only need to do that if you give a root password during install). And that's the problem with trying to learn Linux. Someone will tell you the thing is easy, but they forgot about some arcane step
Oh right, sometimes I forget people have computers other than old thinkpads