Linux

I grew up using macos, still use it on my work laptop, and use elementary os on my home machine. For the most part, it's great. I like

• The intuitive UX and the clean, consistent and beautiful UI
• Good default apps and settings
• Flatpak out of the box, no snap bullshit.
• Generally you can get away with quite a bit without resorting to the terminal

Unfortuntalely, there are a few big issues with it, mostly due to the small number of developers

• Updating the OS to a new major version (that they release every 1-2 years) is a hassle, there is no direct way to do distro-update like on ubuntu for example
• The mail and calendar apps don't support Oauth, and by now, google doesn't seem to support password+IMAP anymore. So no google calendar or mail integration. Also a hassle to set up anything that uses Oauth by default.

If those aren't dealbreakers, I can recommend eos. But do check out the other options as well.

Just do it. Put something like Linux Mint on your Mac. It'll work fine. And it's free.

I recently switched my parents old Macbook with a random Dell Notebook running ZorinOS and they're pretty happy with it so far! So maybe that could be an option for you? Their guides are very easy to follow as well - https://help.zorin.com/

Jumped recently. I was old Mac. It reminds me of when Mac used to be basic. I like it. Less fussy…if you want it to be.

I think you just have to make the jump and install a distro on your computer while accepting that it’s not because you don’t like the first distro that all of them are the same.

Once the first step is done and your old OS isn’t around anymore, you’ll be forced to find something suited to your needs.

Do you plan on installing Linux on your Mac? If it’s Intel based it’s easy, but if it’s an M model your choices are more restricted..

You should look at getting a laptop from Starlabs with Ubuntu preinstalled on it.

Get a usb drive and try out different distros before committing. With Linux you can make use of a feature called LiveUSB which allows you to boot from USB a full usable operating system without changing anything in your filesystem.

The steps here should work for any distro not just Ubuntu. https://documentation.ubuntu.com/desktop/en/latest/how-to/create-a-bootable-usb-stick/

Once created, restart your mac and hold alt when you hear the chime and select the USB drive from the boot screen. Spend sometime in the new OS, get a feel for it, and if you like it you can install, if not, restart and you will be back in macOS as if nothing happened.

real mice have more than 2 buttons.

Ignore the guy who said that you don't have to use Gnome. Gnome is the most Mac-Like, and so is Elementary OS (that is directly copying MacOS). So I'd suggest either Debian 13 with Gnome, or Elementary OS. Elementary OS, by being based on Ubuntu, it has more stuff ready to go (Debian might still need manual adding of repositories, e.g. non-free, if you want to have an accelerated video encoding driver with your video editor).

What’s different between Mac OS and Linux besides Apple’s cloud walled garden? You can bash your way through both file systems. Windows is the outlier.

Don’t.

You like the user experience, you like the hardware, you don’t need to switch to linux to become independent from big tech.

Even if you needed to switch your operating system, what computer are you gonna use it on that isn’t under the control of big tech (however you choose to define that)?

Even if you had a computer you understood the hardware of and ordered in a group buy from a small manufacturer, and therefore wasn’t under the control of big tech, the linux operating system has thousands of core components maintained or developed by people who are in the employ of big tech to do just that! Are you really out from under the thumb of big tech when they’re paying the people that do the lions share of work in key components of your operating system who just so happen to always seem to make choices in that role which align with their bosses needs?

What might be better than switching from mac to linux would be considering exactly what big tech you’re trying to get away from and why, then doing so on the system you already understand and feel comfortable with.