I see, perhaps it was the inclusion of modem drivers, Broadcom? I can't remember the exact criticism, only that it was less favoured amongst some other Linux distros.

I just noticed there's a similar thread talking about Linux and hardening. I'll have a read over there too.

Shame I didn't see your post a few hours ago when I was reading through posts on askubuntu. All resolved now and I'm finding Ubuntu is pretty good choice for for a Linux newb. Anyway cheers for the reply.

I'd ask you more about CentOS, what you said about kernels and why it'd be difficult to configure but I'll save your time.

I'm always wondering which direction Ubuntu is heading when I see this after apt update