Stable (Debian) means that when you get it working it is less likely to break when you update. A broken installation on a server is quite stressful. Downside for desktop/laptop is that it may not support the latest games and hardware.
Ubuntu is probably more stable than Mint, but less stable than Debian. Which you choose may be more personal preference than objective value.
Yes, but if you are happy with Ubuntu don’t worry about it.
Mint loaded Steam via the package manager and it worked out of the box for me. There have been some games I had to try different versions of Proton with, but I have never found that to be not true for some games.
Just because you have OS install media and hardware does not mean the hardware functions. In fact, old hardware often fails MEMTST.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoelace_formula
But don’t do this on the fly… do it before you compile your program and use a lookup table at runtime.
Sorta. If you put a FAT32 disk or sd card into a Linux system and mount it, it will ignore case because of the way the filenames are stored in that filesystem. However, there are a lot of important features you lose working on filesystems like that, so really it should be reserved for sneakernet with other operating systems.
I think I am in the SSD camp. I absolutely hate the latest trend on MS Windows to fill the title bar with various widgets to the point where it can be hard to grab the window and move it. As with the current trend in US politics to stretch the rules well past any previous deformation, give a CSD an inch and it will eventually lead to ridiculously-adorned windows.