Another reason for going with a swap file vs partition (if you need either) are nvme and SSD drives.
A partition that’s only a few GB and written to constantly will wear out a solid state drive quickly.
Using a swap file in a larger partition that has other data allows the drive to even out the wear across more storage cells.
Reminds me of Coffee Stain Studio’s trailer for the release of Goat MMO Simulator:
If the underlying concept is good and was well thought out, it’s better to build upon it instead of reinventing it.
Look at the 4 stroke engine (and engines in general) many of the design concepts date back to the 1880s!
There’s other engine designs (ex:rotary engine) but the 4 stroke has over a century of testing, improvements, and refinements. A new design can adapt some of the refinements, but would have to catch up on decades of innovation and testing just to catch up!
On the Unix side, there’s the evolution of the Posix standard (which was based on Unix).
I think of snap and flatpack as docker containers but for GUI apps.
There’s more differences of course, but I take that as the gist.
I haven’t used mint in a while but did for a few years. The out of the box experience (at that time) was better.
Article from 2011:
Linux Mint 11 is a very respectable and speedy distribution and is comparatively very media friendly and easy to use out of the box for newcomers. These qualities likely have contributed to the operating system’s place on the Top 5 Linux Distribution list.
https://pcper.com/2011/11/linux-mint-rising-in-popularity-and-surpassing-ubuntu-for-top-spot/
More contemporary Mint users chime in here with why they prefer Mint:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=383991
Take a hugely popular distro which alienates some some users with some issues or unappealing GUI choices, Mint comes along and polishes it further and you end up with a distro that is just perfect for that niche.
I think quite a few Ubuntu users migrated to KUbuntu or Mint when Canonical made Unity the default (in Ubuntu 11.04).
Just have to patch in the Linux sound drivers from the 90s!
It should have a custom desktop environment called Crackle (or Krackle if KDE based).
The difference is that if the device comes with Steam OS, then it’s ready to go out of the box and you’re assured the hardware has good Linux support.
If it’s originally a Windows device then you may have to jump through additional hoops to get everything working. Also you’ll have to deal with allowing other OS’s in the BIOS if it’s locked.
Also you’ve paid Microsoft for a license you won’t use.
The flip side is that there’s work to make a native Steam OS build for 3rd party portable devices:
and
Know you meme page (for those that want to see the original without giving Twitter or his account the views):
“Just Google it!”
Proceeds to Google the issue, top result is the same thread.
As a CrossFit enthusiast, I wouldn’t have tripped when rushing to let others know I use Arch.
The other counterpoint is Mac OS 9 and earlier. Had a minority of the user share, had a ton of viruses.
For Linux newbies, you can have both Arch and Ubuntu (or any 2+ of your favorite distro installed) by using different root partitions (16-32G) and sharing your home and other partitions.
Though it may work better if the distros you use have different desktop managers or the same desktop manager on the same major version number (KDE 3.x and 4.x settings don’t mix).
Do a search for you server OS + STIG
Then, for each service you’re hosting on that server, do a search for:
Service/Program name + STIG/Benchmark
There’s tons of work already done by the vendors in conjunction with the DoD (and CIS) to create lists of potential vulnerable settings that can be corrected before deploying the server.
Along with this, you can usually find scripts and/or Ansible playbooks that will do most of the hardening for you. Though it’s a good Idea to understand what you do and do not need done.