I've liked Sony, myself, at least before they shit the bed with firmware. They stayed on better, and had better noise canceling. The transparency was a bit metallic. AirPods in comparison rely a ton on a tight fit for noise canceling, but the transparency is magic. Sadly, I'm more of a noise canceling user.
No. Although I do use them on my Linux desktop I wouldn't recommend anyone use bluetooth on Linux regularly.
But AirPods are the only wireless headphones with which you can use the mic without having to suffer from horrible audio playback and microphone quality because of Headset/Handsfree.