Nice, didn’t know that magazine.

Good choice, just a little to sophisticated for a user coming from ChromeOS.

Almost agree, just Windows RT is worse.

I love Debian! It is a project which provides a lot for the OpenSource and Linux community.

And yes, it is the most stable Linux you can have.
Personally I would suggest to start with a distribution with more actual packages like Fedora, Manjaro or even Arch.

My biggest suggestion is to use cli tools, read man pages, start with man man, install info pages and use a tool like tldr.

Like everything else one wants to learn, the best ist to practice and learn through finding better solution for own made failures.