I have 2016 MB Pro with EndeavourOS as well. I can’t say I don’t like it, but I tend to have quite poor luck with my installs. Each time I get to the customization stage, sth breaks a little. Probably should go pure Arch.

Nevertheless, on MacBooks up to 2014 it should be much easier and require less effort.

What? I know it’s a bit chaotic, but can be more readable than bash sometimes imo. Originally chose it because writing stuff for sed was getting too complex at some point and saw suggestions to use Perl for complex regex instead.

Another i3 user here. I slowly transitioned from KDE when switching keyboard layout stopped working as well as some other DE related things.

Ended up writing custom script for switching. Currently implemented with rofi in Perl, bc I like the syntax.

I still like having a bit nice gui, so i have wallpapers, some icons, etc. But I fell in love with terminal along with neovim : ) , soo kinda looking for that middle ground between look, performance and functionality.

Haven’t finished tweaking all the configs to my liking, but after that vanilla Arch is the direction I plan to go, since many things in my current install that I have as well as haven’t customized work a bit questionably or exist for no reason.

And don’t get any Macbook past 2014. 2015 and later kinda ditched normal connectivity and MagSafe. I have 2016 with only 2 C ports and a jack and it is not the nicest experience out there.

Btw, on recent machines the ports are back. I wonder why, …

I can recommend trying it. Used it on my MacOS installation. Free version works great, but I felt the need for some paid features sometimes (more convenient workflow). But you can totally get job done with the free one just fine.

Just a blind guess, but maybe some issue with the makefile?

brutal, but works

unfortunately

I consider st a great choice when using i3 or dwm. Customizing it takes time, but RAM usage is what I usually check and in case of st it is comically small.

I was quite successful running EndeavourOS on my Macbook Pro 2016, but not everything works perfectly. Still, performance under Linux seems a little better.

First check what year the Mac is. If it is 2014 and below, it will be easier. If it’s over, look online for much more detailed info. Especially batery management, hybernation, wifi, etc. And make sure you can connect ethernet and external keyboard if needed during install.

I had to uninstall broadcom-wl, bc it did not work, but the default (brcmfmac) works like charm.

A Macbook Pro 2016 user here (MacOS and EndeavourOS dual boot)

KDE: some menu options freeze, can’t change keyboard layout

Me: slow transition towards i3wm, write some basic scripts to get what I want working

it took it like 7 months to finally have issue: dbus timeouts when launching some applications

Reinstalled and it works. Well has some issues, like audio and wifi take effort to get working.

Also I find Flatpaks a headache to work with. Easy to set up, but I would consider it rather messy.

I still kinda use MacOS. Would I recommend? Yes, but under specific circumstances. You may need to buy some software. I can get what I want with Homebrew (unless you --no-quarantine it verifies the apps after each update). Is kinda plug and play system when going from Apple to Apple, but in terms of customizability and functionality Linux is superior. Also newer MacOS is awful when it comes to storage. I don’t even know how it is possible for it to take so much space with it magical bits I don’t need neither want and can’t delete. Also get your wallet ready, since older Apple products lose support and you can’t simply upgrade your OS (technically can with some effort), so you can buy a new Mac. And I can tell you that it sometimes gets annoying when you can’t install things just because OS version. MacOS is not meant for much gaming neither for people that want to use it for development, it is possible, but harder thanks to its dir structure. Also it is harder to make MacOS builds and get proper scaling on retina displays (some apps get blurry). Also Mojave is the last OS version to support 32 bit (rip gaming). No Steam Proton. And you can’t just disable external monitors unless you unplug them (great for my modular setup with more than one machine and one monitor), which I find really inconvenient. The monitor is multi input but my notebook is stil outputting to that damn display and prefers it for launching applications on there. Meaning I can’t work on it without either this pain or disconnecting it with one utility I found that has an issue on github that you can’t reconnect the monitor unless you reboot. Also why can’t I set a 60Hz monitor to 60Hz and 30Hz is the maximum? (can do on Linux with no issue)

And did I mention I tried to run Krita on my MBP and it sounds like a jet? Yea, performance is sometimes great on weaker MacOS devices

So yes, go buy that awersone Apple computer, but don’t expect it to work flawlessly. There’s plenty of little details that in the end mess up your day and user experience.

I mean, if you have money for the newest Msomething macs then sure buy one, but if you want to buy older, look for those that can run Linux with decent hardware support, or you’ll regret your purchase.