Debian is fine as an introduction to Linux, if that's what you want. But, as a beginner, you're going to screw up, and Debian doesn't do anything to protect you from that.

Atomic distributions let you use Linux but make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot. It's much harder to break the system in a way you can't just reboot to fix it.

It all depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to learn Linux by using it, then by all means, go for a traditional distribution. Debian is nice, but I'd go for Ubuntu. But, if your goal is to have a stable system that you can't screw up as a beginner I'd go with an atomic distribution. If your goal is to play games, Bazzite is hard to beat.

You can still learn Linux if you use an atomic distribution. Configuring and using the desktop environment is basically the same. But, you don't need to worry about your drivers, and you don't install packages the traditional way. If you want to learn those things, you can run a VM or a distrobox.