First, don't let any of this stop you from diving right in. This is my extended setup and I made many fine prints without it. It's an evolution over time, so you don't have to have everything here before starting.
I use OpenSCAD for designing parts. For functional parts where distances and tolerances are important I think it's the best tool. For artistic or sclupting work probably something else like Blender is better. Skip the nonsense and use the single-binary Appimage of the program. I have a ton of design tips for OpenSCAD, mainly around how to incrementally build up a design and not get confused. I use Slic3r in batch-mode. I don't find I need the GUI at all.
I am using a Prusa i3 which I got as a kit. I really enjoyed asssembling it, and if I got a new printer I would also want a kit. The Prusa is really high quality and I can't recommend it enough. Relatively early on I made a hack on it: the Z axis end-stop switch was activated by hitting a plastic spacer. To adjust the end-stop you had to wiggle the plastic spacer up and down. I added a small 3d printed bracket with a small bolt which is lined up to hit the switch. I can turn the small bolt and it will make very fine changes to the end-stop height.
I tried printing directly from MatterControl, but I didn't like having my laptop tied up for hours and I had a crash once (probably laptop went to sleep) so that was it. I tried Octopi next (Raspberry PI printer controller with web interface and webcam support). I ran with Octopi for a couple of years, but I eventually got frustrated with it. I always check my prints periodically in person, so I don't need to watch a webcam, or watch the layer printing graph. What I have now is a really old Raspberry PI (1 B) running Arch Linux, with pronsole.py installed. I extracted just the bits that pronsole needs from the Printrun distribution (I don't need the GUI parts). For me pronsole is perfect - I just need to connect to the printer, load a model, monitor the temperature until it's correct and print. I run this in screen so I can disconnect and reconnect from another computer.
I ran using a glue-stick and then later on some glue+acetone but it was always a pain - I struggled a lot with bed adhesion and lifting. I eventually spashed out and got some special bed material and it is absolutely magic. I will never print directly onto glass again.
I found having the printer in an enclosure to really help a lot. It gets nice and warm in there and I think this helps a lot with preventing lifting corners, as the temperature difference between layers doesn't get too drastic. I had an old IKEA wardrobe and I hacked it to be the perfect width and added a door with a clear window. There is a shelf between the printer and the filament, and a slot for the filament to go through down to the printer.