Linux on Macbook Pro

So I got an old macbook pro around and honestly I mostly use it to watch movies on it and take it sometimes to school with me. However the MacOSX annoys me to no end, it's downright popping up some stuff from itunes, keeps crashing safari when watching movies, keep asking for dumb updates making my system slower etc.

Using it is a painful experience, it's not even that the OS is on the notebook for a long time, I think i reinstalled the OS 3 months before and it's already annoying me to no end.

So I know linux supports the hardware without any issues, but there are 3 things I'm concerned about.
1.) How is the trackpad on linux? I've heard that when running windows on the mac, then the trackpad will be really unresponsive and hard to use.
2.) Has linux some kind of Calibration tool for the screen like MacOS/Windows has?
3.) What Linux version will give me the most simple user interface to use? I know that there are many linux versions out there and I want one that is very easy to use, so that even my mom and sister can use it without being confused. Thus far I'm thinking of Gnome with fedora theme with OSX icons or soemthing to keep it in "mac theme".

Any input from you guys? I only worked with Linux on servers with putty and some very old versions back in 2003-2005, So i'm completely out of date right now.

 

I can't really answer you since I don't have a mac, but the best thing you could do is to try out some different distros by booting them from a usb stick. The experience should be pretty close to a full install albeit slower and maybe a few bugs. I usually use Lili to put distros on a flash drive. Also don't forget about Distrowatch.com for info on distros and to see what's trending.

 

I tried fedora and noticed that it has massive issues with enduro / optimus. When I try to go for live version i get a white screen of death, so I'll try OpenSuse, I'll update further for those who are interested.

 

Try Ubuntu or Xubuntu 16.04.3 and one more thing use nvidia prime to select iGPU and dGPU manually since Optimus really is a pain to work out of the box, when you want to browse the internet use iGPU by selecting Intel in nvidia x server settings.

 

I tried ubunutu, same story. I had to disable the dGPU in order to get it working, the optimus/enduro support on macOS seems terrible.

 

You can't use auto switch iGPU and nvidia dGPU on Ubuntu without disabling secure boot and EFI. I disabled Secure boot only keeping EFI active.
Tell me, which kernel version was the livecd running? You need 4.8 and above for correct operation of your older MBP. Radeon dGPU will work out of the box with EFI without any additional proprietary blobs.
For knowing kernel version, type uname -a in a terminal.

 

So what you're saying is that Linux will work with enduro out of the box when turning Secure boot off? How do you disable secure boot on a macbook?
Kernel is on 4.13, it wouldn't even boot without me disabling the dGPU via grub.

 

Enduro works with secure boot turned ON or OFF, no big difference since the drivers are open source which can do opencl and GL/DX games perfectly. I always used some option to disable dGPU whilst installing. After installing it worked fine. You may need some Apple software or drivers from Ubuntu Store or use Synaptic pkg manager to find them.
Use radeon modeset as described here. The thing is upon seeing Ubuntu logo whilst booting press Down arrow key to get advanced option to set Radeon modeset.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/771562/16-04-power-off-discrete-graphics-ati-amd