Just do a search on your favorite search engine for "btrfs raid5/6 write hole bug" and you'll see. If power gets cut, any file on the set of disks could be missing, or just have bunch of garbage.
One for XFCE. A reasonble workflow with lots of customizability. Default is a Windows XP workflow, but with extensions you can emulate any desktop, including MATE. The XFCE apps are light and stable with poweruser features, while being reasonably easy to approach.
Endeavor's problem is a Calamares problem in specific.
Pro tip: use an external partition editor before the install. For endeavor, this used to be gparted, but is now partitionmanager. (It even comes with the ISO!)
Fedora requires less maintenance which is important in a university scenario. But then you have those Exam Safe Browsers which don't run on wine anyway.
If you're going to miss AUR-levels of package count, my advice is to grab openSUSE (preferably non-Leap), get familiar with zypper and yast, then add the Packman repo. Combined with the OBS (basically the openSUSE version of the AUR), you'll have pretty high package availability.
openSUSE also requires less maintenance than Arch.
But generally, I recommend EndeavourOS, just add the chaotic-aur so you don't spend hours compiling, and have fun!
they got crippled a WHILE back...