

The US implementation of chip and PIN left off the PIN. The reason given was “no one wants to put in a PIN every time” so for the vast majority of transactions you just hold up your card to the sensor or put it in the chip reader. PIN is only required for cash withdrawals in my experience.
Same here, I started with Slackware 4 and have done the recompile your kernel depending on what hardware you have quite enough thank you. I’ll use whatever works with the least hassle and if that means Linux Mint on almost all my home setups, so be it.