Well done! Your curiosity will be rewarded. I would recommend learning some basic bash to start services, read the logs. Basic cli can really help with debugging when you encounter some new challenges (journalctl command for example).
Another thing I can recommend: When I started with Linux I bought a raspberry and used it without a gui to experiment so my shenanigans were less risky on my main pc. This was 3 years ago and now I'm working at a tech company managing 200 servers because the curiosity and empowered feeling never went away.
Good luck!
Jeez when your behaviour is making Oracle look like the good guy. I wonder how Red Hat feels about the outcome of their decision.
Nuking your windows drive and not dual booting is a very brave decision. Not having another OS (where you know the way) waving at you makes the Linux learning experience much more rewarding.