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.