SSD: Best Buy (US electronics store) still had some SATA SSDs in stock, so I didn’t need an adapter. This is what I got: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-cs900-500gb-internal-ssd-sata/6385542.p?skuId=6385542
Take advantage of the fact that you can make Live USBs of the distros as you decide what you’re looking for.
For me, I found AntiX a little too barebones for me. But your mileage will vary.
I will have to give Mint another go sometime!
Ooh, I just did this! Mid 2010 white MacBook, Core 2 Duo P8600, 2GB, spinning rust HDD.
*Strongly recommend switching to SSD. I also added an 8GB stick (so 9GB total, hah) but my hunch is that even the SSD alone would have made this machine much more enjoyable.
I ultimately decided on MX Linux, although with systemd as init so that logind could handle lid and power button events. The default power manager (XFCE?) would result in a black screen upon resuming otherwise. MX Linux also worked the best for me in terms of optimizing for battery life.
PeppermintOS was my second place but also had the black-screen on resume.
I also tried various flavors of Mint but felt that Peppermint and MX were ever-so-slightly leaner in terms of features I actually use and battery life.
Avoid Void Linux. On my system the trackpad only worked in one direction.
I was not able to get the nVidia card to work with proprietary drivers. It’s so old that it requires legacy drivers (340) and I just ran out of patience. Nouveau or bust.
I am currently using it for casual web browsing and YouTube. It handles YouTube pretty well although I’m still searching for a native frontend that allows me to login to my YouTube account so I get all my subscriptions and stuff.
Posting this from a 2010 MacBook given a second chance at life with an SSD, 8GB of RAM, and Linux. Spent $70 bucks on the upgrades.
Original battery still gets 4 hours of battery life, too.
Such low, sad tactics. I’ve just converted an old MacBook to Linux. It’ll be good to not have to deal with these shenanigans.
To those who have already switched (whether to Credit Karma or another service): What are you using and why do you like it?