Linux users, be honest: if I switch over to the penguin, how much time am I going to spend wondering why things don't work as they should and trying to fix them? Will my experiences of development and personal computing merge in this way?

You shouldn't have much trouble with ubuntu or Ubuntu based distributions imho.no matter what pc or laptop hardware I've used ,all my components worked seamlessly.if you find that there is a component that doesn't work.it is really easy to install additional device drivers that will get all your components working.so really most things will work.

What kind and year is your laptop? As long as its not a dell or 2017 version you shouldn't have any problems with ubuntu or fedora

with linux mint none. Its like windows 7
. Get the synaptic packet manager.
You can try some distributions on virtualbox vm first.

Don't know. Heard stories about everything going wrong but haven't had a single problem in years...

@jckimble why not a Dell? Dell has Ubuntu ready/certified laptops.

@nickhh certain broadcom cards have problems with the linux kernel, its easily fixable with the right packages but their not installed by default

@jckimble can confirm, dell 5000 series here. Migrated to fedora though. Probably going to Manjaro next (hope all works)

A lot! But it's a learning experience, how OSs work etc

The honest answer is:

Most hardware should kinda just work, but not all of it will. Your mileage may vary. I've got a small bare bones system with mostly Intel stuff inside it. It ran Linux flawlessly from day one (Ubuntu and fedora), my wireless card works, my Bluetooth works, the Intel graphics work.

And short of adding third party software repositories, which was one post install task, I've never really had to tinker with it.

@jckimble I have a MacBook 12. It's nimble and powerful enough, but I'm was thinking of selling and buying a machine specifically for Linux, since it feels wrong running anything other than macOS on a MacBook. Actually one of my fears about switching is that I would detach myself from the outside world and from my users.

@nickhh I had an Ubuntu Dell a few years ago. It was good but not without problems.

@gratitude you shouldn't have any problem at all then linux has really good support for macbooks. If you want to get something else try to find something preinstalled, while you can look up driver support on an new laptop its not something i recomend for new users.

But as for the disconnect it shouldn't be a problem unless you're developing apps for mac, iphone, ipad or iwhatever

@jckimble do you think there would be a difference in performance, given that macOS was developed specifically for the hardware?

@gratitude that's going to be purely dependent on what linux os you use. Ubuntu and fedora are what i call heavy linux oses, they probably would pull around the same speed as macOS would. Any light weight linux os will probably out preform it though, i don't know if any of these would have an guided install though