Hi. So, not all of the software you use will work on Linux (which btw isn’t a company but to put it simply a family of open source operating systems sharing a common core):

• Affinity don’t offer a Linux version so you will need to try something like WINE to run the Windows versions.

• Blender will defo work, not sure about the others

• Davinci will work, has a Linux version

• VSCode has a Linux version

• File explorers work.

Ubuntu sadly is not what it was.

I’d suggest Pop_OS or Fedora- I think Fedora used to have a media oriented “Fedora Design Suite” version.

libreddit to the rescue

Battery replacement will also boost your CPU performance, it’s worth spending a bit of money on it.

Running PopOS on a 2012 Macbook Air and Fedora on a 2015 Macbook Pro.

Potential common pitfall used to be having to add the Broadcom wifi drivers separately - I had to add them manually for PopOS but Fedora worked out of the box. Honestly PopOS + Wayland totally saved the old little Air and it’s a fantastic machine to use.

You may have to start using some free third-party tools for built-in features that work on the Mac.

I replaced iCloud keychain with BitWarden for password management. You can use Beeper for iMessage - it’s one of the few things to actually support it. iCloud Drive can be accessed via rclone I think but it might be terminal only - mind if you can get it to work via terminal then you can mount it as a folder. You can use Cider as an Apple Music client. I haven’t yet looked into Calendar and Contacts sync with iCloud but you can always export those and import in your software of choice on Linux.

Generally VPN’s are a good idea. I think the level to which streaming is policed depends both on your ISP and the laws of your country. An ISP that is part of a big conglomerate that owns media companies (eg. Virgin) might have more financial incentives to go after people who stream content “unofficially”.