Lockdown mode is a feature of Linux that's automatically enabled if it detects some circumstances. IIRC, it's a requirement for getting your stuff signed to allow you to do secure boot (without loading a manual secure boot key, of course). I would say it's enabled on most first-time Linux users' computers.
As for Wayland, I learned the hard way that modern distributions have removed the Wayland block on Nvidia drivers, and many will go Wayland-first after install. It's easy to switch back, but only if you know what X11 and Wayland even are in the first place. Of course distros have to try to push people to Wayland, because Red Hat and desktop environments are moving towards Wayland-only for new releases in a couple of years, but that's not without its unfortunate consequences.
In a few years, Wayland has gone from "doesn't even start" to "usable with a whole bunch of quirks and issues", I'm sure it'll work fine when the time comes to abandon X.org. But for now, the defaults are a bit weird. In practice, distros can pick between "some weird issues on Nvidia hardware" and "extremely limited touchpad gesture support" and it's tough to make a choice there.
As for Wayland, I learned the hard way that modern distributions have removed the Wayland block on Nvidia drivers, and many will go Wayland-first after install. It's easy to switch back, but only if you know what X11 and Wayland even are in the first place. Of course distros have to try to push people to Wayland, because Red Hat and desktop environments are moving towards Wayland-only for new releases in a couple of years, but that's not without its unfortunate consequences.
In a few years, Wayland has gone from "doesn't even start" to "usable with a whole bunch of quirks and issues", I'm sure it'll work fine when the time comes to abandon X.org. But for now, the defaults are a bit weird. In practice, distros can pick between "some weird issues on Nvidia hardware" and "extremely limited touchpad gesture support" and it's tough to make a choice there.