Seems like you’ve got a lot of distro recommendations haha which is good - go for one of those and you should be ok (I’m on mint for the record). My suggestion if you have a bit if extra money and less time is to buy a prebuilt system with linux already installed, tuxedo and system76 are two big names but I can’t comment on what to go with there.

However the advantage with buying an integrated system like that is that the hardware is all guaranteed and you can ring them for support if needed.

My other suggestion is to BACKUP your files!

Yep I’m pretty sure its wayland! But its only version 5.X

I did install Plasma + apps on mint btw (just apt installed and crossed my fingers)! Have been running issue free for about 6 months but I didnt uninstall the gnome apps so theres a duplicate for everything.

Edit: I still wouldn’t reccomend it if you are starting out, I only did it because I couldnt be bothered switching distros