This thread is very timely, as I'm looking to switch from macOS to Linux, and I tried years ago, but was turned off by difficulties getting the keyboard setup the way I wanted it.

One of my favorite macOS applications is "ShortCat", which allows you to chord a shortcut (cmd-shift-space) and gives you a "GUI search" wherein any text that is on the screen (on any monitor) becomes selectable by typing it and choosing a selection...kind of like the way Vimium works in the browser, but for your multi-application context. I am comfortable with vim bindings generally but don't really care as long as there is consistency (pre-baked preferable, but configurable works). I've tried Linux years and years ago and my biggest gripe was that there was no unified "system" for handling setup of keyboard shortcuts / macros. "One system to rule them all" would be ideal, or at least "one system for each context layer, consistent between applications."

I am getting option paralysis since I know there will be a learning curve, and I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing just to find that the distro I picked is not going to meet my needs without a ton of deep customization. What Linux distro and/or window manager is going to get me multi-monitor HiDPI support with good keyboard-only navigation? From lurking HN i3 looks like it might be favored in my situation?

I want a workflow that allows me to easily jump from window-context to window-context, tab-to-tab, sub-window to sub-window, independent of monitor or applications.

I would consider something minimal like NixOS or Arch if someone could recommend a good playbook/setup for someone like me, and Manjaro and Pop_OS both look cool, but otherwise will probably default to Ubuntu for beginner google-fu.

I run both Manjaro on my laptop and PopOS on my workstation, and highly recommend both as great options to someone coming from MacOS like I did. PopOS on System76 hardware is very much like MacOS on Apple hardware in that things just work and you can get three years of great tech support. I've run Pop on other machines and it just works well. Manjaro is a blast because you always have the latest software and the installation is easy. While Ubuntu is perhaps an easy default, I can't really recommend 20.04 with the same enthusiasm as Pop 20.04 or the latest Manjaro release, as I have seen a lot of folks have problems. Try out PopOS - you really won't be disappointed, and will probably be delighted like I was.

I've recently installed Pop!_OS, mostly because I heard good things about its installer (setting up FDE on a secondary SSD is completely insane in Ubuntu).

But their tiling window manager extension is the real gem in my opinion. It's very clearly a v1.0, but I am still surprised by how much I enjoy it: https://github.com/pop-os/shell

Absolutely - I had been playing with i3 and other tiling window managers, but I always miss the full DE experience when using them. Pop-shell looks like it might fill the gap between Gnome and i3: tiling goodness with a full DE. I am looking forward to System76 developing the extension!

> What Linux distro and/or window manager is going to get me multi-monitor HiDPI support with good keyboard-only navigation?

Try sway. There isnt as much documentation online as I'd like, but the included man pages are good.

> Windows is mouse-centric to be point of being unusable to me

I find that very relateable. I have gotten used to doing everything with my keyboard and windows just doesn't allow that to the same extent.

You can actually operate the entirety of Windows UI with just the keyboard. That's one reason why the great majority of handicapped users use Windows and not macOS or Linux.

Actually, it’s a lot more about standardization and pricing. Apple’s assistive tech is excellent.

Can you give some examples? I've found it to be pretty good with the basic stuff like switching applications or workspaces, snapping windows to the left or right half of the screen, opening and closing arbitrary things. I can think of some ways I'd like it to be better though, like making the left/right halves arbitrary sizes with the keyboard.

I have yet to figure out how I can quickly move one window to another workspace in windows. Under mint, I just do Ctrl+Alt+Sfit+H/L to move a window to the previous or next workspace. I also have Windows+T mapped to open a terminal, which I do everything in these days.

ALT-TAB doesn't do what you want?

I very often use complex window layouts [1], not just side-by-side. The fact that I can ask my window manager to arrange them for me, in the way I want, without having to drag them, and without them ever overlapping, and without wasting screen space on useless window decorations, is something I'm just too used to to switch back to the way Windows would have me manually arrange and resize them.

[1] - https://q3k.org/u/96613e57e6d630e35c8872f2fe970331fa327cd501...

There are tiling window managers for Windows. I know because I am making one :)

Windows is mouse-centric but you've got to install stuff to get middle-click paste working.

> "- system update when I want it,..."

  Windows ramming its updates down my throat whenever they feel like it is totally unacceptable among other things.

Mandated, automatic updates have their downsides, especially for some of the HN crowd, but for 99% of the population I really appreciate that patching is automatic for the other 95%+ of users. Getting the vast majority of computers in world quickly up to current security patches protects users and creates something akin to "herd immunity" where exploits become fairly useless to bad actors.

That's not the problem, it's that the update can't be done in the background.

On iPad or iPhone, when I get an update, it installs overnight and my device is immediately available to use after restarting.

On every Windows device I've ever had since Windows 8, I have to sit there and wait for some reason. (I've already selected the 'use my sign-in information to speed up...' option)

Every single time that Windows updates, there is no way to get it to perform the entire process when I'm not using the device. As soon as I restart or log in, there is more lengthy 'configuration' or 'working on updates' to be done. It's unacceptable.

- a bunch of choices of really good backup apps. I never got this running well on Windows.