Quick fire answers!
There are no whole notes in 3/4 time, a full bar would be written as a dotted half note.
Yes, it’s kinda silly! We stick to the whole/half/quarter/eighth/etc. system even when time signatures change. For example, in 5/8 time, there would be five eighth notes in the bar, which makes the name not make any sense. But it would be more confusing to keep changing notation systems!
No, it’s not the same because we have four strings, so there can be as many as 4 places to play the same pitch. For example, the G in the top space of the staff could be played on the open G string, the D string 5th fret, the A string 10th fret, or the E string 15th fret. For just starting out, you can just pick whatever option is closest to an open string though.
There are ledger lines in bass music! Just not in very looowww bass lines. 
Every pitch (octave specific) has its place on the stave, some pitches can be played on multiple fret/string locations.
Practice a s**tload!
That’s a good question. Probably both. You need some neck knowledge to start, but reading also helps develop your neck knowledge.
Yes, and it’s because the strings are tuned 5 half steps apart. So 5th fret E = open A, and onward, so that “shape” repeats all over the neck.
Technically, bass is an octave transposing instrument, so the note a pianist would play reading the F outlined by the bass clef would be an octave higher than if a bassist read it (on the 3rd fret of the D string).
Takes practice! You have to digest them in small chunks and get used to seeing them. It’s just like when you first learned to read letter by letter, before you could read words, and then phrases/sentences.
Hope that helps! And thanks @joergkutter for your contributions too!