Don't know, and to be frank I don't feel so strongly about it either. I use perl because it's the language I happened to become fluent in some twenty years ago, and nowadays when I want to put together a simple utility script in python I usually just say "meh, fuckit" after ten minutes and finish it in perl instead.
99% of my code is in perl. My local power source is 100% hydroelectric. I therefore choose to believe that nuclear energy would result in my code quality improving.
/var was originally for files of varying sizes, but today it's more of a general purpose storage for the system, such as log files. It used to make sense to have this as its own partition as read and write operations were generally expected to be small but many, as opposed to few and large for the rest of the storage areas. With its own partition it's easier to adjust the filesystem to accomodate the I/O. Today it's mostly used for logs.
/local used to be similar to /usr/local on some systems, but that's not really the case anymore. It's a directory we use at work for local stuff, as opposed to /global which is shared with the entire server cluster.
You can have any directory as its own partition, just make sure the mountpont reflects it. /home is a very common example of this - using this as a mountpoint instead of just a normal directory named /home prevents regular uaers from filling up the root filesystem and borking normal operation.
Swap is what your PC uses when it runs out of RAM. It can be a partition, or it can be individual (large) files. As an example, I have a rather huge and demanding factorio save which takes up more memory than I have on my laptop, so when I want to play it I have to add additional swap space. It's similar to what windowa refers to as the pagefile. It's slow compared to RAM, but it enables the PC to operate relatively normal despite being bogged down with loads of allocated memory.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under impression that Porche lost the bid to build Tigers, though? And all the chassis they built for it were instead used for the Ferdinand.
On servers I like to have /var on its own partition. Partially as a habit from the olden days of using FreeBSD in the 90's, but also because that means that / will mostly be left with things that don't really change. I've had to clean out clogged up / too many times. So in effect, my partion schema for a typical production server looks like this:
/ ext4
/local xfs
/global usually beegfs or nfs, but sometimes a local xfs.
/var ext4
/home ext4
I for one missed Portnoys influence on the music. Not necessarily as a drummer, but as a songwriter and general arranger. I always liked Manginis drumming, including his work before DT, so I've always been curious how DT would be if Portnoy was involved more on the production side.
Either way, I'm happy to again be able to hear the DT i fell in love with all those years ago (well, minus Derek). I hope to see them live again soon.
If you already kinda like mint, I suggest moving out of a VM for a proper OS install.
Linux in a VM is just that: A VM. It has the same use case as VMs in general. If you want the Linux experience i think you're better off allowing linux to properly talk to your hardware.
What to try depends entirely on what you normally do with tour PC, be it steam, deluge, or libreoffice. Use your mint installation for whatever you usually do with Windows.
Whenever I pirated something in the 90's I went to this site, covers archive, where I could print out the CD cover inserts. So in effect I pirated a physical copy, minus the box it came in.
After mostly playing BG3 lately, I'm now back to Factorio. I figured that since my angelbob mainbuss save passed 1GB, it was time to start something new, so I decided to give Space Exploration a go. I hope to have it completed by the time the space expansion for Factorio is released.
Probably a bit overkill for your use-case, but I use a bunch of these to monitor and log server rack temp and humidity at various locations at work. External probes optional.
I'm sure many petrol heads enjoy fine tuning combustion and make sure the suspension is tailored 100% to their neighborhood roads and all... but sometimes they just need a car with which to pick up some groceries.
He's a drag queen, right?