In the past I've installed many distros on many older PCs, but never used linux properly (although slowly moving over to avoid win11). I've also had a heap of history with windows installs.
A family member has been testing Mint on an old laptop and is going well. This is a trial run before I update their iMac laptop (not sure what one but no longer supposed by OS updates).
I've never booted to an iMac BIOS or installed over top of apple.
Is this going to be like installing over windows?
What issues can I expect?
Should I consider another distro?
Asking here as searching results in AI bullshit websites.
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.