dude, you need to narrow your query way, waaay down. are you ditching the mac and getting a PC? are you gonna rock them side by side until you transition? desktop? gaming? laptop? converting an existing macbook to linux? which one? intel? pre-T2, post? which wifi? what’s your daily software stack you depend on?

all the listed things are possible, some easier, some less so, but, respectfully, nobody’s gonna write up an all-cases guide for your lazy ass. so, hop to it, state your use case and ping back.

Some very good advice here already so I’ll be brief.

Here are some random things that spring to mind as being of note as someone who hasn’t switched exactly, but has used Macs since 1995 and uses Linux alongside macOS.

• Gnome will be the most familiar on day 1, BUT. It’s amazing how quickly that won’t matter anymore when you’re learning what’s what. I started on Gnome and avoided KDE Plasma, which everyone said was more like Windows - and still ended up liking KDE Plasma the most. Both aesthetically and in terms of how easy it is to adjust anything that might not be quite right.

• Avoid XFCE if you have a high resolution display, and you’re installing Linux on an old Mac. Customising XFCE to scale things correctly for high resolution is stuff you just don’t want to be messing with as a new Linux user.

• Avoid X11 and use Wayland (which will be fine if you use KDE or Gnome). X11 was very confusing to me as a Mac user, as certain changes require a reboot. As above, this is just an extra level of complexity you don’t need if you’re used to Macs. On Wayland if you change the visual scale of the interface or cursor size, it just changes then and there. On X11 you’ll be wondering why certain things don’t seem to be changing…

• On macOS you install apps generally by drag and drop. On Linux, whilst this isn’t actually true when you know what you’re doing, it’s as if you only have the App Store. It might have different names on different distros or DEs, but fundamentally you’re going to have a single repository that all your apps and updates are coming from.

• Firefox has a hidden menu bar and you have to push alt to bring it up.

• Apart from swapping ctrl and cmd many keyboard commands will be familiar.

• It’s ultimately up to you how familiar you want to get with the terminal. Some distros you could genuinely ignore its existence. Others would expect you to use it at times and not supply certain GUI tools for certain things.

• People are probably right that Linux Mint is that best place to start. You almost certainly will want to switch just to see what else is out there at some point, it’s just how things go. I use KDE Plasma on Debian now. But there’s nothing Mint is lacking or doesn’t have. Ultimately the only reason I’m not still using Mint is because of wanting to use Plasma, which is doable on Mint if anyone wanted to, but not officially supported.

Appreciate what you are doing. You made the right choice

From a Linux beginner: I switched from mac with 0 knowledge of Linux. Did some searching, found Ubuntu Budgie, haven’t switched since. I bring it up cuz I was specifically looking for something that looked Mac similar, and it came up. It’s not as Mac as I originally thought, but I find it pretty approachable so I figured I’d share.

I think some more advanced users have issues with Ubuntu, I’ll leave them to comment. There may also be better options for Mac feel, perhaps those mentioned. For me, this was Mac enough I haven’t switched away and I haven’t gone back. Happy searching! :)

I’m a long term Mac user and have been periodically playing with Linux because I want to fully switch eventually. (full disclosure I currently still have a MacBook I use as well as a Linux desktop)

I’ve tried Ubuntu, Debian, Elementary, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten, but the first one I’ve really felt is a viable daily driver OS is Bazzite. This is because it largely just works out of the box, such that you only need to install and tweak extra things if you really want to.

I strongly recommend Bazzite, and I personally prefer the Gnome variant.

Bazzite gives you:

• easy way to update everything in one place
• “App Store” like application to find most apps you’ll need
• all the basic drivers and utilities you’ll need out of the box
• a “Files” application that feels like Finder
• a “Document Viewer” application that feels like Preview (although it’s not as powerful)
• a quick search feature that’s a lot like Apple’s Spotlight, and honestly is way more reliable than Spotlight in more recent macOS releases
• multitouch trackpad gesture support out of the box
• a Settings app that is pretty straightforward to navigate and controls most of the things you would care about
• There are other settings apps for finer tweaking. I know that sounds confusing, but Linux people wouldn’t complain if it wasn’t possible to change every detail somehow. Bazzite does a good job of making the important stuff accessible in the main settings app IMO, so you generally don’t have to worry about the deeper options.

Here’s a guide to get you started:

1. Go here: https://bazzite.gg/
2. Fill out the dropdowns (Q: What hardware are you using? A: Desktop, Q: Who is the vendor of your primary GPU? A: this depends, it’s important to get it right, ask for help if you are unsure, Q: What desktop environment do you prefer? A: I recommend gnome, but KDE is great too, Q: Do you want Steam Gaming Mode? A: No, I want a traditional desktop experience)
3. Click the “download Bazzite …” button
4. Make a USB stick into a bootable Bazzite installer (I recommend using https://etcher.balena.io/)
5. Boot your computer from the USB stick. How to do this depends on the motherboard, but generally means holding down a key while booting (on a Mac it’s Option, on other computers it’s often something like Del or F2 or F12 or something) This will bring you to a menu that you navigate with keyboard arrows until you find the option to boot from the USB
6. Follow the steps from the installer. It’s pretty user friendly.

Note that this will delete all data in the USB you use and the drive you install Bazzite on

Once you have installed Bazzite, here are a few programs I’d recommend (these can be found in the “Bazaar”, which is an “App Store” like way to get programs.

• VLC (like QuickTime in macOS, but honestly VLC is way more powerful)
• LibreOffice (there are a couple FOSS Office suite options, this is the one I personally recommend)
• KdenLive (video editing - like iMovie or Final Cut)
• GIMP (like Adobe Photoshop)
• Disk Usage Analyzer (like DaisyDisk on Mac), if you’ve ever used that
• Mailspring (I haven’t found an email app that is quite as nice as Apple’s but Mailspring is the one I’m currently using)

If you have any other questions let me know! I’m happy to help.

Ignore people telling you you have to use GNOME. Use whatever looks good to you. I actually have a KDE Plasma desktop with a Mac-like layout. The DE doesn’t matter much though.

Assuming you don’t know anything about Linux desktop or server:

• Be patient.
• Linux has Desktop Environments, for short “DE” like GNOME and KDE, whose purpose is to provide a graphical interface and useful utilities.
• Software on Linux is mostly installed through package managers, so you don’t search the web for an installer, you search the web if you need to figure out what software you want to install (alternativeto.net is a good place to start if you already know a similar software), then you install it through your package manager. Some applications won’t be in your distro’s repository, you may want to try installing a flatpak, on KDE you use Discover for that, on GNOME you use GNOME Software. As a last resort you can use AppImages, those are downloaded from the web, ideally from the developer’s GitHub or whatever.
• Linux has excellent hardware support but it’s a good idea to do a web search when you’re buying new hardware, especially peripherals; manufacturers often don’t write drivers for Linux, so the community has to pick up the slack, usually it’s no problem, but sometimes it is.
• Linux users can be very opinionated… Think with your own head, only you truly understand your needs.
• The terminal can be scary but it’s very useful. Once you’re settled in, try to learn a bit about it.
• Conditional on the previous point: if you have more than one computer, learning ssh can be very useful to control one from the other, exchange small files, etc.
• ssh and rsync especially are excellent for transferring files safely and without errors, but they’re encrypted, so they have overhead. File shares on Linux are mostly NFS, which is complicated and not widespread, or Samba (SMB/CIFS), which is Microsoft’s protocol reimplemented, this one is easier and usually integrated in DEs, but it has caveats sometimes, so maybe try to set one up before you need it, it’s not fun to deal with in a hurry.
• Most DEs have system managers to check resource usage and processes (programs), but most people prefer to use terminal utilities like htop, or more recently, the snazzy btop, they can be installed through your package manager.
• Linux doesn’t have drive letters, it has a file structure that starts at “/”, different mass storage devices can be mounted in arbitrary locations in this structure. For example your personal files will be under /home/yourusername, this could be the same partition as everything else, or it could be a separate one, or a separate drive. If you have a non-removable drive where you store only let’s say Games, you could very well “mount” it under /home/yourusername/Games. This is very useful in some cases, and something that Windows I think implemented but still doesn’t use. Removable drives are usually mounted by the DE and end up in /var/run/media or whatever.

Its really quite easy, if you own an intel mac, just install debian on it, maybe carry some data over, if you must. I would recommend a usb stick. Install a good looking desktop environment, and look up a few starter tutorials. Easy, and quick. Linux isnt hard at all, if you dont want it to be.

You should probably start by listing the programs you need. Everything else such as gaming/customization is distro specific.

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).

Gnome Desktop will be the most familiar UI and workflow for you. Other than that, just take note of your existing software stack, and check to see which will also have Linux builds to install.

For a nice experience I would start with elementary OS or Linux mint.

The first will please your aesthetic from the get go.

There are a lot of differences and a lot of similarities between the operating systems here. It will take you time to get used to no matter what you do. Start by swapping your apps on your existing Mac, trade out any apps that you know won’t work on Linux with apps that do. That way, you spend some time in your existing environment with the new apps you’re going to need going forward.

Next, make sure to test out your peripherals in a live environment. Does everything you use with your computer work correctly? If not, find out why. See if you can mitigate it, or if you’ll need to replace stuff.

Finally, be willing to experiment. I know others in this thread will recommend various desktop environments and distributions to you. Try many of them. GNOME is good and simple out of the box, feels kinda mac-like, but if you want to completely replicate the functionality of macOS, KDE Plasma has more options for that like global menus and the file management app (Dolphin) is incredibly extensible and customizable.

Try to have fun with it, and don’t give up. It takes time to learn a new way of working, and you will likely have frustrations along the way, but ultimately the goal is to learn and figure out what works best for your needs.

If you’re like me, a long time Mac user with a lot of time spent in Windows for work, I think it’s really pain free to switch.

I chose Debian – the distro for boring people. Supposedly, it’s the best for stability and compatibility, not the best for cutting edge applications and perhaps slow to get some drivers and what not. Often people suggest alternatives like Mint as user friendly. However, I haven’t had a single problem with Debian in terms of compatibility or usability.

For the “Desktop Environment” (DE) – that which impacts the most whether the system feels more or less like MacOS – I use the bundled KDE Plasma without modifications. Like on Windows, the most used keyboard shortcuts, by default use Ctrl instead of CMD. If you’re at all used to Windows it will take you no time to adjust – otherwise it may take some rewiring of the brain or rebinding keys. The stock file manager in KDE is nowhere as nice as Finder, but also trivial to adapt to. Overall, KDE Plasma does not really mimic the feel of MacOS at all, but I consider that a pro – it means that I don’t end up frustrated assuming something will working the same way when it doesn’t.

I have never been big on using the official App Store on MacOS, but if you are, that’s going to be an adjustment. Each system comes with something similar to the App Store, but they generally don’t come with the same range of apps (e.g. Debian/KDE has an app called Discover which has a really narrow range of apps). However, as you’re stated goal is to break free from big tech, getting to know the different ways of installing apps will be a rewarding experience (and rather straight forward, most of the time).

Speaking about apps, I think one of the pains you should prepare yourself for if you decide to stick mostly with apps that are “Free Open-Source Software” (FOSS), the degree of polish – particularly in terms of investment in GUI/UX – will generally be considerably lower than many paid apps you might be used to, particularly premium Apple apps (e.g. Final Cut).

As for hardware, I don’t really have any valuable pointers. I think losing out on the great synergies between Apple’s excellently built hardware and very optimized software is a big trade off. But depending on what you’re gunning for, you will have a lot more options and potentially at a better price/performance point.

Depending on how all-in on the Apple you are, there will be a few main sticking points for you.

1: Gestures If you use a trackpad, you’re going to have to adjust to a more limited set of gesture commands. The same with button mapping on a mouse. You’ll almost certainly need to learn new ways to move around your desktops.

2: PDFs Preview is a godsend to Mac users. Preview does everything bar editing PDFs. You will no longer have Preview. You’ll need to find three or four applications that replicate its features. And all of them will feel a bit lacking in comparison.

3: Apple Music Apple don’t believe in Linux, so if you use AM and wish to continue listening to lossless on your computer, you’re going to have to either use WinBoat to run a Windows VM into which you can install AM, or you’re going to need to use Waydroid in order to run the Android version of the AM app. Neither is great, but both (mostly) work.

But ultimately it is worth it. I use my Mac much less than I used to, and my iPad almost not at all now.