Linux is the big player in Unix like operating systems. It has the major mindshare. This means that often if you want functionality, the path of least resistance is to install Linux.
Generally Swonk uses Debian or Ubuntu. Debian used to be a lightweight Unix like system. It has grown and put on a bit of weight over the years. Ubuntu is based on Debian, so it suffers the same fate.
Recently I needed the Arduino development environment. Running under Windows or OSX I was having problems getting drivers for the diverse modules I was using. The cheap chinese modules had unsupported serial chipsets. The USB to serial adapters I used suffered the same problems. A quick Linux install got me a functioning systems with the Arduino development environment and support for all the cheap chipsets.
On ARM the goto distribution is Armbian. Armbian provide both Debian and Ubuntu distributions for the ARM systems.
Currently I am using an Orange Pi PC running Armbian Ubuntu as my Linux desktop for Arduino development. It also doubles as a media player with Audacious and I have dabbled with Kodi playing video. The standard video player chokes on most videos, but Kodi must be using the hardware for playback as it works nearly flawlessly.