How is Debian better than Ubuntu and its derivatives? I've heard that it's pretty good for scaring away Linux newbies. Also, since making the switch, how have you dealt with running Windows applications that don't have a suitable Linux alternative?
Linux alternatives to Windows applications: Prior to the migration I was already running Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, and LibreOffice for my day-to-day stuff so my bread-and-butter was mostly natively catered for. I also have a Microsoft Access database that (when I have spare time) I'm steadily porting to a php web-based system. Other than that, I have Windows games and Xara for graphics design. Some apps I traded up such as the Windows scanning software (wiaacmgr) and Epson Scan, for Linux alternatives.
Gaming - I dual-boot with Win10 and just run my games there in the vast majority of circumstances. Some people do their gaming in Linux in various ways but I haven't done much investigation there, I've tried to keep things as simple as possible. Xara and MS Access - I have a Windows 7 virtual machine in Linux. I could run certainly MS Access with Wine but when I tried it the fonts weren't exactly tip-top and considering it's my company database I'm not going to risk some potential weird Wine bug with company-critical data.
Debian / Ubuntu - some things do my head in about Debian, like why on earth do I have to configure sudo myself when Ubuntu does it for me. I also wasn't impressed that a key library to allow the ideal Epson print driver to install is present in Ubuntu but not in debian (and can't be installed in any official way, hack jobs at best). I think Debian will be slightly more of a PITA at times, but I'm hoping that it's more thoroughly tested and maintained than say Lubuntu or Kubuntu; I have a sneaking suspicion that the Lubuntu / Kubuntu devs do not
eat their own dog food. One other reason IMO to migrate to Debian is that Ubuntu 20.x uses a system called 'snap' to install and update software, and while I understand it has some advantages about quick roll-outs and things, it seems to me that performance is where it sucks. For example, Chromium installed on my (quad-core Haswell) home PC in Kubuntu 20.04 cold-starts slower from SSD than it does in Debian 11 through a dual-core virtual machine with the VM file hosted on a 5400RPM HDD in my PC. IMO that's an astonishing trade-off for anyone with at least half a functioning brain to make. After it starts it's fine, but when cold-starting it's almost like running apps from a high-compression zip file rather than just storing it in the native file system. The fact that the debian devs seem to understand that and so they avoid it means they and I are a lot more likely to park our cars in the same garage.
Debian still has a graphical installer and you choose which graphical environment you want to use, so I think there's a reasonable chance (possibly as reasonable) as Ubuntu in that a newbie user doesn't necessarily ever have to drop to the command line to get stuff done. While I regard myself to be a Linux newbie, I have flirted with Linux many times in the last ~20 years before my migration in 2018, and perhaps I sell myself short. One thing I'm absolutely sure of though is that I know way more about Windows than I do Linux
Maybe I'm asking too much from an OS. Win7 for me was almost perfect but it had some issues, like the user's Downloads folder taking notably longer to open than other such 'special' folders. IIRC Win7 also had a tendency to temporarily forget its power saving settings. If Win7 was supported forever with security updates then there's a good chance I'd still be using it, but generally speaking I'm of the view that in my line of work I need to look forward and a certain amount of branching out is good for me. I also don't think I have much left to learn about Windows that's particularly pertinent to my work, so I'd be treading water (in terms of a learning curve) if I migrated to Win10/11.
IMO if you're thinking of dipping your toe in Linux then Ubuntu (or one of its flavours) is a perfectly fine place to start. It might be completely satisfactory for your needs. I'd start by playing with it in a virtual machine if I were you. I personally detest the main Ubuntu UI (hence I use Kubuntu), but I seriously doubt everyone does.
The one thing I'd never advise anyone regardless of which OS they were migrating to that "don't worry, it'll be fine!"; I'm not a fanboy of any OS. You will I'm sure experience some discomfort in the process, but whether it's desirable or necessary for you, I have no idea. I'm happy to give advice to newbies.