I wouldn’t worry about wayland vs xorg at this point. There are reasons to prefer one over the other but, as a new user, if it works it works. And if something is broken, it’s easy to switch between them (I assume it’s an option in the login screen?).

I’d just recommend whatever your distro defaults to, because that’s what they think works best.

Same as systemd if you stumble upon an argument about that at some point. It’s something the distro has made a decision about and taken care of, so it’s not something you have to choose.

As for a tip: On Linux, the “app store” (I think it’s called “Discover” in KDE?) is actually pretty good compared to Windows. If possible, applications should be downloaded from there rather than directly from websites.

1) Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card. Are there any real noticeable advantages/improvements to using Wayland over Xorg.
If you have an Nvidia card you’re probably best sticking to Xorg for now. I’m currently running Xorg with Gnome 45 since I have a GTX 1060. As I understand it Wayland is better at handling refresh rates across multiple monitors, as well as DPI scaling. These are minor issues compared to having everything working smoothly. I do feel like Xorg is on the way out now however, and I expect to switch off of it in a year or two.

2) Does bloat actually have a noticeable negative impact on your system or are people just over reacting/joking.
It’s mostly just a meme. It certainly won’t slow you down. What it does do is take up space on your hard drive and in your menus. I do understand taking pleasure in ensuring that your system is trimmed down to only what you really need. But don’t worry about it at all.

3) What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?
The same habits you have on Windows. Keep your files and folders in order. Beyond that there’s not much you need to worry about, especially with Kinoite.

4) Any habits or standards that I should abide by in order to save myself headaches in the future?
Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Most important is leaning to RTFM, meaning go read the documentation for your distro (or just look at the Arch wiki) when you have an issue. If you run into a problem and need to ask for help, make sure you don’t do the XY problem.

5) Any other resources besides the AUR that I should be aware of?
I don’t think Fedora Kinoite supports AUR, that’s an Arch Linux thing. You’ll be getting 99% of your apps from Flatpak.

6) What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?
A long time ago I made a thread that got shared around a bit about how I thought the command line was pushed by Linux anoraks who didn’t understand the needs of the common user. I’ve used Linux a lot since then and I’ve changed my perspective: the command line is your best friend. It lets you do exactly what you want to do very quickly. It’s fast, it’s efficient, it’s beautiful. If you learn it a whole world of additional tools command line tools will open to you (ssh, grep, etc). There’s a reason that places like /c/unixporn love pictures of open terminals with neofetch loaded up.

Is Wayland worth using?

For a first dive into the Linux ecosystem, I recommend Xorg. I use Wayland myself (Hyprland), and that’s why I know that it’s simply not ready for general adoption. There are many features that are missing, won’t be implemented, or are done much differently compared to X. Some say Xorg is old and bloated - I say it’s a mature technology.

There are also some applications that need root privileges to work (Veyon Configurator is one that I struggled a lot with) and you have to do some weird pkexec hackery to launch them.

Wayland’s development has more drama and bickering than an average sitcom - I recommend Brodie Robertson’s channel if you’re interested.

advantages/improvements to using Wayland

Wayland is better for gaming. It has a noticeably lower latency because the entire Wayland stack is implemented in a single program (what they call the compositor) as opposed to several in the X11 stack (X server, compositor, window manager) that need to communicate with each other. Unfortunately Steam and some other applications often produce graphical artifacts on Wayland+Nvidia.

Does bloat actually matter

Compared to Windows, it is insignificant. My work laptop is a Macbook Air from 2015 running Linux Mint on just 4G RAM without issues.

Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?

Install the tldr program. It’s a bit like man but lists practical examples of a command instead of a full documentation.

What are some habits I should practice

Make use of your home directory. Most user applications will have a config file in several places - usually in ~/.config (user config) and /etc (systemwide config). You should only edit the systemwide config when it makes sense, and always prioritize the user config.

A common practice is to have your /home directory on a different partition, or a different physical device. If the system breaks or you decide to distrohop, you can unmount/disconnect /home and only wipe the root partition while retaining your user files.

I also recommend using Timeshift to back up your system. It’s even better if your root partition uses btrfs since it natively supports snapshots.

What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux

I needed to leave the Windows ways behind me. On Windows, I had a hard drive mounted as F: and an external HDD mounted as H:. Moving to Linux (Manjaro at the time) was basically a snap decision since Windows had obliterated the boot partition during an update and then broke itself, and I had no idea how to properly set up the filesystem didn’t consider how I wanted to set up the filesystem, so I mounted them to /mnt/f and /mnt/h on a whim. It caused me many hours of headache later.

One thing I would recommend is using a note taking app to create snippets of fixes or personalization changes for your OS that you’ve made. For me that includes things like how to add my laptop’s webcam to the blacklist and other things that I’d need to spend time looking up since I don’t do them that often.

• Wayland is the new standard and X11 is the old standard. NVIDIA support is getting better. The advantages are mainly under the hood, the most relevant for most users is in security and compatibility with newer hardware. If your distro comes with Wayland, use it. If it doesn’t, then don’t worry about it.
• Bloat’s subjective and mostly a matter of taste. Unless you’re trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of a 10 year old potato, the bloatiness of your default desktop install will not meaningfully impact your performance. Even the most bloated linux install runs lighter than Windows 10.
• Keep up to date, especially security updates. Don’t work in root unless you have to, don’t use sudo if you don’t need it, and configure permissions properly rather than 777ing everything. Be careful adding package repositories: don’t add from other distros or other versions of your distro as that can screw up dependencies. Check your package manager or flatpak before resorting downloading random files and trying to install them manually.
• Yes: linux subreddits/communities, Fedora’s own documentation and forums
• How easy it is to make a mistake that’s very hard to fix. Also, understanding what “everything is a file,” the filesystem in general, and what a desktop environment even is.

the gentoo wiki is also a great resource !!

wayland seems to be the way desktop linux is going, personally i like it and am migrating over w plasma 6, but ymmv mrowz

Wayland has proper scaling and should be the way of the future. Many apps are starting to properly support it, which should bring a few advantages.

Regarding NVIDIA, what I’ve heard is that with the latest proprietary drivers, there are very few issues (although I can’t promise you anything, currently using fedora KDE on a Mac of all things).

Bloat is relative. It all depends on what your hardware is, and as such, on how many resources you’re willing to “waste” for convenience.

The arch wiki is a really decent resource.

And I wish I knew that NVIDIA proprietary drivers don’t get installed by default in a lot of distro, but they’re usually well maintained by most distro maintainers

• Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card.

Short answer, no. There are advantages, but not worth it on an nvidia card. Wayland will replace Xorg very soon is a saying for over a decade, there’s reasons it hasn’t happened yet, nvidia is one of them.

• Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?

For starting up, just a meme, on the long run it’s nice to have a small system, but not that important i£ you have the disk to spare.

• What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?

Yes, the main one is “use the package manager”. The second one is keep your /home in a different partition.

• Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?

I would say that any community is also a good resource, since people are usually helpful.

• What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

Set your /home to a different partition, I know I already mentioned this but it will save your ass the first t*me you break your system and have to reinstall.

One suggestion I haven’t seen addressed: use a filesystem with snapshots such as Btrfs and combine it with Timeshift.

With Timeshift you’ll be able to roll back in time on your disk and undo stuff. It can take advantage of the lightning fast snapshots of Btrfs to do that.

On Btrfs, separate your /home into a subvolume @home so that, when you do roll back, your personal files aren’t affected.

Configure policies for daily and weekly snapshots on Timeshift. Don’t worry about space, they’re basically free.

That way you can feel better experimenting with your setup, as long as the system is Bootable.

Bloat is just a meme, it comes from a time when sysadmins would need to optimize every aspect of a system to get the most out of it (like not using vi, because it took up too much space/memory). You will never need to get that much performance out of your machine.

I try not to install programs all willy nilly. If I want to try something new, I’ll fire it up in a vm. I mean this about programs from 3rd party sources, and compiling from source. Anything in the repos is good and will uninstall cleanly too.

On fedora you get more programs through RPMfusion. It’s sort of official, but also not. And you can also check out the copr repository, this is more like fedora’s aur. Opensuse’s open build service also sometimes has packages that work for red hat systems.

When I first started I wanted Linux to work just like Windows. It took me a while to shift my perspective to the way Linux people do things. I don’t know how to speed up that process though.

Wayland: I would (and do) stick to xorg for now. Wayland isnt quite at the level where it can fully replace xorg yet.

Bloat matters, but not to a worrysome extent. Most users probably won’t notice it outside of specialized customization, and I’m sure you won’t either.

Not so much on the managerial or organizational side, but I highly recommend getting used to and comfortable with the shell. Start with the easy stuff: file operations such as mv, cp, chmod and so forth, and use a text editor of your choice to edit text files. The memes would have you use vim, and while that is my preferred editor, more beginner friendly ones, such as nano, will do just fine.

Resources: I find that most of the time that I need input, either asking somewhere relevant (such as here), or looking it up on stackexchange will give me the result I’m after.

Things I wish I knew: When you can achieve what you want via the package manager, do it. Installing and removing stuff without it tends to gradually change your OS into a state where every library requirement is in conflict with some other requirement.

I’ve been using linux exclusively for about 5 years, hopped a bit for the first 1-2 years (mint, mx, lite, debian, manjaro, artix), settled on Arch. I think Mint is the best one for ppl coming from windows.

Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card.

IMO no, i have a 1060, tried about 1 year ago and it had lots of issues on KDE, gnome seemed usable but it’s gnome so no, and i use LXQt so if it gets good support or if i like plasma 6 i might try again.

Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?

If by bloat u mean installing lots of packages, the “problems” would be disk space and longer updates, and if it’s a service it will depend on the distro, i think debian/ubuntu and derivatives will usually enable the service after install, so they will use some cpu/ram too. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue but it’s a good idea to only install what u need and remove stuff when u don’t need anymore.

What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?

Just don’t sudo install anything outside the package manager, like node/python packages or downloaded stuff (u can usually install them somewhere in $HOME)

Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki that I should be aware of?

No, whatever search engine u use should be enough.

What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?

Nothing i can think at the moment, i used mint in dual boot for a while, just “switched” (deleted the windows partition) when i realized i didn’t boot it for a few months, so i was already pretty comfortable with it.

• “Is Wayland worth using, especially with Nvidia” I have no personal first-hand experience with Wayland; I run Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition, which is still X11 for the moment. MY personal philosophy is I’ll adopt Wayland when Mint does. Basically don’t worry about it.
• “Does bloat actually matter or is it just a meme?” It is 93.3% just a meme. The most extravagant diamond encrusted froie gras kitchen sink apocalypse bunker mega yacht Linux distro you can find is going to be slim and trim compared to any currently supported edition of Windows. You will legitimately find some folks in the community who would just rather go edit a config file than have a GUI that edits it for you, and you’ll find some woodworkers who prefer to use hand planes and chisels. A hobby’s a hobby.
• “What are some habits/standards to keep my system organized and manageable?” Mainly, learn how the file system works, learn what /opt and such are for. Otherwise your skills for managing your files on WIndows should suffice.
• “Any other resources besides the Arch Wiki to be aware of?” Man pages. You can read the documentation for any command in the terminal by typing “man commandname.” For example, to learn more about the change directory command, cd, type “man cd” and it will tell you all about it. It even has its own man page, you can type “man man”. All of this is stored on your system locally, so you don’t even need an internet connection for this.
• “What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux?” What middle click does. There’s a thing called the primary buffer which allows you to highlight and paste text simply by highlighting text, then middle clicking somewhere else. It’s separate from the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V feature. Also, what dotfiles are. Short answer is, hidden files on Unix-like systems start with a dot (.) and there’s a ton of them in your home folder. These often hold things like configuration files for applications, so backing up your entire home folder including hidden files will catch all your preferences. Plus, there are directories like .fonts where you can put TTF font files and they’ll be available to applications. It’s something you don’t often get shown during onboarding but it’s there.

I highly recommend timeshift. It makes it easy to make system snapshots (think system restore points) at regular intervals so that if you try something and it breaks your system, you can restore it to a working state. It has saved me hours of work from all of the reinstalls that I didn’t have to do. I wish I had something like this when I first started out with Linux. It would have saved me dozens of Linux installs.

Don’t listen to the trolls please, you have to think long term, how will you grow in the next 2 to 5 (or even 10) years, because without a doubt you will grow and have a learning curve which alters the way you will use your machine. There are tons and tons of solutions and people pitching it from their Linux ricer power user perspective.

Don’t make yourself regret and/or spent countless hours switching back and forth, solving issues, looking through help articles, etc etc

I know it’s hard but trust me, you literally cannot make a good choice now with your current state. Just install Ubuntu and get a hang of it, use it, do your stuff you want to do and when you are comfortable with Ubuntu, then throw that piece of junk in the trash and switch to Debian Stable - no, not SID, no you won’t miss out on all the cool bleeding edge AUR packages.

When you take this path I described you will grow with the system and you will be able to make the decision based on your needs, wants and use cases. Trust me or suffer, I am sorry new guy.