A fresh install of Catalina was unusably slow on my 2010 Macbook pro (to say nothing of even trying Big Sur!). I had gone back and forth between MacOS and Linux on this machine over the years, and the Linux experience has been improving in comparison. Especially now that some apps are falling out of compatibility with High Sierra (the last version that ran acceptably on this hardware). And it's not as though you need to use a lightweight distro; regular Ubuntu works fine on old hardware. The focus on keeping everything lean and performant, while maintaining compatibility with older hardware, is a great advantage of modern linux distos.

Linux hasn't replaced my desktop workstation OS quite yet, but the last few years have definitely been "Year of the Linux Laptop" for me.

Yeah, I got a 2009 MacBook Pro for free (or like $10 or something, I forget), and it's now running the latest FreeBSD. BSD, GNU/Linux and other open source OSes typically run great on MacBooks, and give them new life. Try it out!

Exact same situation. Couldn’t upgrade macOS whatsoever and it was slow as anything. Whacked Ubuntu on there and it’s running as good as new, outside of slow disk reads.

Yeah! I actually dropped an old secondhand SSD in mine and it makes a huge difference. You'd never guess the machine is over a decade old other than the slightly bulkier form-factor and mediocre resolution, haha (and in fact I actually really like the keyboard compared to newer models!)

The newer butterfly keyboards got all the bad press (for good reason) but a while back I had to use one of the early aluminum models from when they were still thick enough to hold disc drives, for the first time in many years, and damn, I'd forgotten just how much worse the original slim driveless models' keyboards were, than those. Those were basically perfect, for a laptop.

Yeah that's exactly what this 2009 model is, the nice thick keys that actually move quite some distance when you press them. So satisfying and tactile! Now when I try the latest MacBooks in an Apple Store it's like typing on nothing. Very strange feeling.

I know it sounds crazy but you will get used to it if you use it for a day. I'm picky about keyboards and I thought I would hate it, but after a couple years I type as comfortably and quickly as I do with the cherry browns on my Das Keyboard

The trick I find is to type very softly, then its an amazing wonderful experience. I haven’t used my MB keyboard for a while so when I went back it felt very jarring because I lost my soft touch. Have to retrain myself

Yup.

I've had a lot of luck putting Ubuntu on older Macbooks for quite a few years now. Works quite well.

In my experience all software seems to slow down over time. Firstly, my expectations of "fast" change, but also all the various data structures a system needs to run grow and complicate. In addition we ask more of our software over time and run more of it.

For many, not even Ubuntu is immune. Hence articles like this:

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-speed-up-ubuntu-1804

Half of these tips have nothing to do with Ubuntu. Changing your SSD will do wonders for your Windows installation as well...

Yep, I'm typing this on a '15 macbook pro with PopOS on it.