So a while back I threw Ubuntu 22 LTS on an old Surface Pro 3 and gave it to my Dad.
He loves it, but he's the type who's been burnt by updating software in the past, so he basically refuses any whenever prompted.
Been thinking about throwing Debian with Gnome on it for a while, and wondering if it's stable enough to just let updates happen automatically in the background?
I got no experience with Debian I basically jumped right on EndeavourOS as my main distro when I started using Linux full time.
Beware that Surface computers need a custom kernel for some features to work. It depends on the distro and the features you use, but I'd suggest you see the linux-surface project for more info. As for updates, standard Debian has a stable release model, and is one of the more stable Linux distros in general, so I don't think he would have issues with any automatic updates. I'd just say that you should try to be on standby for tech support, as Linux has many differences and is naturally a bit more prone to issues than Windows.