1. xetex is the state-of-art way for dealing with Chinese type setting. You can install xetex on Debian series of Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.) using the following command.

wajig install texlive-xetex 

You can use command xelatex to compile. The utf-8 format is preferred.

There are 2 good ways for writing Chinese doc using LaTeX (TeX Live) in Linux. You can use either the ctex or xeCJK package. ctex is based on xeCJK and is more convenient, however xeCJK is more customizable. The following are minimum example using ctex and xeCJK respectively.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ctex}
\begin{document}
中文 English 
\end{document}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xeCJK}
\begin{document}
中文 English 
\end{document}

Both template uses the Fandole fonts coming with Tex Live by default (without manually specification of fonts to use). With Tex Live 2015 and above, the configuration is done automatically and no hassle of manual configuration. Both ctex and xeCJK need xelatex (see below) to compile.

xelatex test.tex

Required packages (texlive, xelatex, ctex, xeCJK, etc.) can be installed on Debian sereis of Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.) using the following command.

wajig install texlive texlive-xetex texlive-lang-cjk

The following command installs all LaTeX components that I personally use frequently.

wajig install texlive latex-beamer wiki2beamer dvipng texlive-xetex texlive-lang-cjk texstudio