@_elena Don't know much about Arch either, but Manjaro makes it quite beginner friendly.

@_elena REALLY good resource is Explaining Computers youtube channel, Chris used to teach computers and is REALLY good at explaining stuff and is a great teacher & AFAIK person in my conversations w him. He has series for beginners including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8vmXvoVjZw&list=PL2m2YvnrOYxIsVz8Nvm1PpsBXdo7clAaR

@_elena arch has a learning curve, manjaro, cachyos endeavoros are more suitable for beginners...they are arch based and have less bloat than ubunutu based systems

@_elena mint. It has some foibles but it works and it easier to fix than the non deterministic mess that is Arch.

Background : ran Arch, decided my time was more valuable and infinitely better with a working machine. Switched to Mint.

@_elena it's pretty easy to swap. My advice: start from mint/fedora/Ubuntu, stay on it some days and if you feel brave, you can go to Arch. Personally, I'm pretty happy with fedora kde

@_elena Q4OS with Trinity desktop environment won the 3 way tie for first place in my 6 months testing on old 2010 Asus UL30vt laptop. But have not tested with a Mac yet. Other 2 in the tie: MX XFCE & Manjaro XFCE (Manjaro is based on Arch but has "training wheels" so easier in some ways to get started with, I don't recommend ether Arch or Manjaro for beginners unless using on test machine). Lot of things I like about Q4OS but not sure if install on Mac is as easy as MX https://q4os.org/

@_elena I’m using Ubuntu, and it’s very easy to admin.

@_elena Mint XFCE (Cinnamon is the desktop environment usually done with Mint, but again not great choice for older hardware XFCE is better on older hardware in my testing) https://linuxmint.com/download.php

@_elena MX XFCE (the XFCE part refers to Desktop enviornment TLDR the graphical interface aspect you work with, XFCE is lighter than KDE better choice for RAM limited machines like old Macbook Air) works really well on Intel Macs based on both my research and testing, have it on 2017 Macbook Air. https://mxlinux.org/

@_elena Fedora (Redhaaaaaat!) and CashyOS (I use arch btw) are my picks.

I also have an MB Air 2013 in my shelf. Maybe I should do the same. But tbh: I have no use for it. I have so many better Notebooks lying around…

@_elena

There is no good answer. My anecdotal experience is that Ubuntu just works in MacBook laptops. I also happen to like the simplicity of the gnome desktop, and the fact that online accounts just work (for Nextcloud, google drive, calendars, even outlook/exchange), seamlessly integrated into the file browser and the time/calendar/notifications.

Be mindful of a possible 30-second delay upon booting into Linux. This can be solved, depends on the MacBook model.

@_elena
I put Mint on all my devices. But those were all Windows. An HP laptop. An old Dell desktop and a Dell 17 inch laptop.
I'm quite happy with Mint.

@_elena endeavourOS

@_elena
NetBSD? One of the few who are against GenAI in their code.

@_elena
Arch isn't quite suitable for beginner though it's an excellent distro.
Mint and Fedora are both great, while their ecosystem is a tad different (Mint may feel like 'more Windows-like').
CachyOS is worth trying as well if you already have some experience with Linux. It's Arch-based and performance-optimised.

@_elena I ran Ubuntu on my Air quite happily.