You will not go wrong with that, I would personnal gone for linux mint debian edition but only because I prefer the look and feel, but mate is still good.
It is not Windows but at least the old laptop boots and shuts down, without a fuss now!! Been using the Mate DE, with Linux, for as long as I can remember!!
A vast improvement …
Ghostbsd defaults to Mate desktop.
You seem to say this as a flaw 
You could try Zorin Linux which is said to include Windows compatibility built-in (Wine, etc) and see if that makes you happier…
BTW which CPU, RAM is in that laptop?
Here we go again!!
It is what it is!!
Not a fan of Zorin Linux either!!
Intel i5 with 2cores and 16GB of ram with Nvidia and Intel GPU!! Nvidia has been blacklisted and Debian is using the Intel 3000 for Graphics!!
What do you mean? I can switch from Intel to Nvidia easily on Mint 
The laptop has a Nvidia GeForce GT 550M which takes the old NVIDIA 390.xx legacy driver, which is no longer supported by Linux, so I blacklist it, to run Debian!!
Ok. That makes sense. Thank you for the clarification!
If you blacklist the old nvidia driver, does that force it to use noveau drivers?
No!! It forces debian to use the Intel 3000 graphics, lspci will still list both Nvidia and Intel but the Intel graphics is the only graphics being used!!
Hello Daniel
It is not Windows but at least the old laptop boots and shuts down, without a fuss now!! Been using the Mate DE, with Linux, for as long as I can remember!!
How many Gigas of RAM has your machine?
If RAM is an issue for some programs such a GUI editor consider to use Geany, I use more Visual Studio Code
About Web Browser Firefox should be enough
I am happy with your move from Windows to Linux … 
Actually nVidia decided to not follow Linux kernel API changes in older drivers before the GF10 series…
Maybe worth to have a look at:
(I don’t have that old card, so can’t test it)
I have, do not need the Nvidia GT 550M for Linux, so, just easier to just blacklist and run the Intel 3000 graphics!!
You are reading too much into this, the laptop has issues with W11, so I installed Debian13 first, did not like “trixe” so I am now running Debian12!! I am nowhere close to giving up W11!!
Sad to read 
It’s your choice anyway…
Why!! The laptop is just a hand-me-down machine for playing with Linux, which I am doing!! No way I will convert my two main W11 machines too Linux!! Sorry that everyone @its foss feels this way!!
