I'm willing to bet that you knowing NixOS is going to make Debian installation a completely easy and smooth experience. If you can use Debian stable, you are go

I'm willing to bet that you knowing NixOS is going to make Debian installation a completely easy and smooth experience. If you can use Debian stable, you are going to setup a rock solid system for your parents. If you can start the installation by using an Ethernet cable instead of wireless, I think you will have an easier time, but once you get all the updates complete you should be able to switch over to wireless fairly easily. With Debian stable, it really doesn't take very much time to figure out if you're going to have hardware issues within an hour or so of beginning installation. This is coming from someone that seems to have less knowledge than you do about Linux, and has also installed systems for people that were not very forgiving when things go wrong. I suggest starting with Debian stable because security is backported, and if you can get it running within approximately an hour, you should be good for quite a while. That's not to discount what everyone else has said here, just my experience as someone that is closer to a "consumer" level of Debian usage than a sysop. I did get into Linux with Red Hat in the 90's, and have dealt with the pain of manual configuration, but haven't had to deal with it in over 10 years now. I mostly deal with Windows and .NET development now, but am looking to get back into Linux now that I can make use of .NET and drop server costs and resource usage.