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Advice for a Mac user switching to Linux?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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You would have to do that, yes. In all likelihood, you'll be fine with just picking a distro. As the Señor says, elementary has a Mac-like aesthetic.
I have no experience with that distro myself, but I'd imagine that it allows running a live environment directly from the USB, that will let you test it without installing so you can see if everything that you need to work will work, and also whether you actually like it (running a live environment from a USB will be slower than if you had it installed, so don't base your "liking it" off of that).
It's not so much just an aesthetic, you can make KDE and even GNOME look much more like MacOS than eOS will and KDE can even to an extent act like Finder (GNOME not so much, they're too ideologically different)
But Pantheon is designed to act like Finder. (whilst trying to not infringe on Apple's designs) It's the closest thing functionally to the modern Finder outside OpenSTEP.