For me its history repeats itself with dos and msdos.

I like your thinking, I have a dual boot on laptop with windows 11 and LMDE installed, and its been a while since I booted to windows for personal use. Unfortunately for me I am still dependant of windows until Autodesk decides they will create the software I use for the linux environment as well. Until then, I’ll rock on with personal “freedom” of linux, while I’m a slave to the corporate / microsoft

I use keepassxc, works well for me.

I guess if you have a new laptop, I can imagine that with newer kernels than what is debian based, that said before debian 12 recently came out. I’m personally a bit worried of recommending “corporate funded” distros, help me if I’m wrong, but what heppened with RHEL, I can’t stop thinking it will happen with fedora… It is just my opinion/fear

Would start off with linux mint cinnamon edition, imo it is the easiest way to transition to linux, and dont be afraid to play around with linux. Go make mistakes, it is the best way to learn from

If you do use any debian distro, nala is a great way to update your packages.

I guess you can run fedora if you want full features of a laptop. Im currently running LMDE5, is rock solid for me this past 2+ years, upgraded seamlessly from LMDE4. I guess LMDE6 will be released soon after LM 21.2 is released. I do think that at the end of the day , whatever you choose, you can change your desktop environment so it suites you.