Just found this sub-forum, nice.
I tried earlier Ubuntu 19 on an iMac 2010. It ran from USB stick pretty nice. I wasn't that impressed about the looks, seemed like a little bit too cramped to my test. But it work allraight I need to mention that.
Now years later I've got these obsolete Mac hardware laying around. I can't dispose of them entirely, and not many want's them cause they are depreciated - no OS from Apple available. I think I spent almost a month studying Linux distros and consuming time at Linux news and videos. AI news too, I'm pretty sure, but it's ok if know it's AI.
Finally, I chose Fedora. Not only because it's corporate backed, but it seemed I can make both good looking, and working without hassle.
I have now installed 2x Cosmic Atomic and 2x Design Suite. I'm not sure exactly which Desktop Environments they have, I guess Gnome and KDE - need to check that out. And I love the tiling window manager demos and feel of it. It's better than windows, though win11 is good too.
I love both of those distros.
I've got MacBook Air 2013 dual i5 in here, it works great though a lowly spec old laptop. Surfing is smooth.
Macbook Pro 2015. Even better experience, though I would need to swap the battery to it. I've got the spare already waiting for to be installed.
I tried iMac 2017 i7 4-core too, with a heavily shattered screen glass, and yes, Blendering along and around is smooth with it (as much as I can tell, I'm no Blender guru at all, far from it). There is this 5K resolution problem, still not solved I think. But at 3840x2160 and 125% interface scaling, I can't say I realize any difference to REAL retina iMac on MacOS. Sleep is not working in iMac 5K though, it will start over the OS after a little longer sleep. I let the screen go off now, and not let to fall asleep at all.
OffTopic: Lenovo Thinkstation P710 256GB/2TB WX7100 is even more impressive, but not gonna ruin the Linux/Mac hardware conversation with that much more than to mention it.
Liquid Glass, upsell RAM and Storage, and now unavailability of models, has moved me from MacOS to other OSses, unfortunately. Win11 is usable and software compatibility is the best of all worlds for me (maybe not for everybody). Linux is way slickier though, and I believe privacy, and advertising, I mean the lack of it, is a huge bonus.
I think I will saddle up one more iMac 27 with even more RAM and a non-shattered glass. Apple does not support the hardware anymore, but it would be capable for work too, not only hobbies, which would be my main use case with it. 3D printing, Orca Slicer, Blender studies, maybe check Bonsai for it (BIM plug-in) just for the interest of it. FreeCAD absolutely. I already knew about Scribus, Inkscape and GIMP, friends from my Mac journey earlier on.
Unfortunately there is no ArchiCAD neither Rhinoceros or Solibri Model Checker for Linux. I could try to VM, emulate or maybe remote use any of those, but that would not be for real work, at least not at first, maybe never who knows.
I'm excited about Linux today, to say at least. There is a learning curve at the beginning, but it's not that big, definitely everyone can get over it easily. Not that much different than the obstacles jumping between MacOS and Win.
I love reading your opinions and experiences with Mac hardware and the suitable distros for it. I will probably try others too than the Fedora family, later on.
iMac 27 5K with a shattered glass installing Fedora updates (glass is laminated to screen, so no way to repair it easily, would need to replace the whole panel assembly).
edit. corrected the autocorrects (distress -> distros)
🙂
