Yeah, I’ve had one hardware glitch that support sent me a detailed video how to fix by resetting the mainboard within a few hours of writing them, fixed it within 10 minutes. Other than that any issues I’ve had are linux-funkiness, like odd sound profiles on the speakers that I could fix myself, and have been gradually taken care of through updates along the way.
Not unless you want to be halfway competent at both, rather than well-qualified and hireable for either. Genetic engineering in particular is a rapidly evolving field, and if you take tons of extra time to complete your degree (or finish and then work as an electrician or something else for 5 years) what you learned at the beginning probably won’t be more relevant than any other wet science experience. As the first response said, what’s important is that you demonstrate that you can self-motivate and learn. Any biology related bachelor degree should help you get your foot in the door of any biological or even chemical science job–you’ll have to sell yourself to a greater or lesser degree, but you have to do that for a job interview anyway.
All that a second qualification, whether that’s electrician, plumber, stenographer, etc. would do for you is make it more likely that your lifetime career will be that secondary qualification. If that’s what you want then why bother with genetic engineering, and if it’s not then fast-track genetic engineering and know that if you need a bridge job it’ll be at a lower salary, but that you’ll be getting your main job earlier in life so it’ll even out.
I think machine compatibility plays a huge role, some machines do mostly ‘just work’ while others are a pain. It also definitely requires some tinkering, though mostly on setup or on the first week or two in my experience.
Also, ymmv and a lot of people swear by them but I’ve never had good luck with Ubuntu based distro, they’ve always been super buggy with hard to track fixes for me. I like fedora a lot better and it similarly has decent (though not nearly as extensive) community support for weird bugs, but I know people swear by many things.