I run Ubuntu or Fedora on my laptops and desktops.
I was looking into MacBook Air, for battery life, weight and keyboard, but don’t want this MacOS black box.
How is Linux on a MacBook Air?
I've had a few freezes on my recently-purchased 12th gen running NixOS, but I've juste applied the documented workarounds for the issue and am waiting to see if those resolve it.
Other than that, it's been a surprisingly solid experience. Sleep on lid close, wake on open, Bluetooth just recognized my ear buds, fingerprint scanner just worked after I enabled it... not a bad setup.
In my experience, older (pre-T2 and Apple silicon) models are relatively easy to get working.
I'm currently running Linux Mint 21 on an Air 2017 that was excruciatingly slow when running mac OS, and it got a lot snappier on linux. The drive is still slow, and I'd love to replace it, but the adapter that supposedly lets you connect an M2 NVMe to that silly we're-so-so-special-and-you-can't-have-an-M2 port didn't work with the spare drive I had on hand.
Oh, and due to restrictive licensing (on Apple or Broadcom's part) the wifi drivers and webcam firmware can't be included in the Mint installation media, so I had to bluetooth tether my mac to my phone to download and install the correct wifi drivers, and also had to download and install the webcam firmware manually.