I see people talking about mint on the mastodon social network. After one of those mint experimenters ran into hardware incompatibility, I suggested Ubuntu, (the last one I used) and it worked. I still think Ubuntu is the most widely adopted.

Found these stats (2 years old)

The most popular Linux distro is Ubuntu (employed by 32.8% of users), followed by Debian (14.4%), and CentOS (10.8%), according to Linux usage statistics.

Of the top 1 million websites, 18.4% work on Ubuntu.

The Linux distro Debian has 1,000 active developers.

Linux’s desktop OS market share is 2.38%, and the number of users doubled over the past two decades.

Ubuntu is based on Debian.

more there if you are interested.

https://kommandotech.com/statistics/linux-statistics/#:~:text=The%20most%20popular%20Linux%20distro%20is%20Ubuntu%20%28employed,The%20Linux%20distro%20Debian%20has%201%2C000%20active%20developers.

I've been using ubuntu as desktop and on aws cloud for decades. I have been using pop_os ( a ubuntu flavor from system76 ) as my main desktop, mostly on Intel, but I have never installed pop_os on any Mac.
I found pop_os as entry level (desktop env) very user friendly, but very stable gui env
https://support.system76.com/articles/switch-from-macos-to-popos/

Good luck, and have fun.

KoF20, greetings...welcome to DU...cheers, OSD (relative newcomer myself)

HOWEVER.

If you have a dvd drive (USB) you can try linux "live" distros. I like knoppix.
Alternately, boot from a thumb drive loaded with a distro.

I have an older imac that needs repairs. Fine, except the display is blank! So, that's in the cards. It's too nice to waste (depending on repair costs).

Good luck.
Knoppix will be updated some day. (Klaus says so) but it has been a while.
It's Debian Linux less systemd. (starts flame wars ... )

Can't speak to RH/Fedora, as I used them in the distant past (Yellow Dog Linux ran on a very old laptop)

I have both (2 laptops and a desktop) running linux.

You might also look into adding virtualbox on the Linux O.S. and running Apple's old version in a client window in case you need to do so until all your programs have replacements.

streaming netflix and browsing the web…zero other applications to worry about.

my main “issues” are:
1) updating (as i said, apple no longer provides updates for this unit)…mostly for security

2) if possible, use this unit as a display for an old dvd player

3) connect to the internet thru my cellphone hotspot to stream movies etc.

skills to maintain.