Huh, a shame about the display manager issues, and thanks for the gdm & sddm warning, I was about to go use them since they apparently recognized sway (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sway#Using_a_display_ma...), but I'll keep looking.
As for Nvidia, no worries with the little old netbook, it's integrated Intel graphics.
I wouldn't totally dismiss gdm and sddm -- my issues could be peculiar to my hardware, the versions available at the time, and so on. As long as you've got a fast internet connection, it's only 10-15 minutes to try each one. YMMV, as they say! Just be ready to hold down the power switch if things go badly. (For reference, I'm using sway on a netbook with one of AMD's integrated offerings, maybe Llano? I haven't tried a DM on that machine.)