I learned to embrace the process of installing Debian by doing it dozens and dozens of times, beginning when I first "discovered" Etch until now, when I run Buster on a 2017 HP laptop and 2011 iMac desktop. During the many years between Etch and Buster, it helped a great deal that I had many older "test" computers and hard drives at my disposal. If I screwed anything up, I could start over.
I tended to do it the same way every time: Encrypted LVM most of the time, accepting most if not all of the installer's defaults.