Answer : Get whatever meets your needs for voltage, current, readouts, size, price, etc. Don't worry about whether it is a switcher or linear. In general, linears are less efficient. However, this matters little to a bench supply. The few watts or even 10s of watts it might occasionally draw more than the equivalent switcher is irrelevant. It will get hotter, but presumably since you are buying a whole box this has been designed in. Unless perhaps you have a very specific physical spot in mind for this box and there is little room for ventillation, the extra heat of a linear won't matter. Switchers will have some switching noise on their output. Again, this shouldn't matter. Check the ripple spec, but the ripple of any finished-box commercial lab supply really shouldn't be that high, a few 10s of mV at most. What exactly is the problem with ripple? Not much in a bench setting. Things like relays, motors, LEDs and even the occasional LEB (light emittin...