You are absolutely correct. I remember when I switched from Windows XP to Mac how much quieter it got. No more constant pop ups, and importantly, apps were not allowed to steal focus. Now there’s a constant stream of interruptions. I’m constantly having window focus stolen by others apps while I’m typing, constantly having notifications, and the UI has only gotten worse over the last few years.

But damn if that hardware isn’t the best.

I’m torn on how best to switch to linux as a daily driver considering how much I depend on the very customized workflow I have running on my Mac.

Get a ThinkPad and install fedora. Read the arch wiki if you run into problems with specific software. You'll barely notice the change tbh, gnome is really good these days especially on a standard fedora workstation release.

ThinkPads mostly just work (they use Ubuntu to run their acceptance tests before shipping). You do sometimes run into issues for a couple months on new machine releases while kernel catches up but having enough Linux users running them means things get fixed eventually unlike on say system76. Dell xps works about as well if that's more your style.

> having enough Linux users running them means things get fixed eventually unlike on say system76

In the Bad Old Days, this was true-having Linux developers using your Windows hardware would ensure it's eventually mostly supported. Note the "eventually" and "mostly."

System76 ships with Ubuntu or Pop! OS, and they support it for up three years. This is a _huge_ improvement. System76 makes sure both that Linux supports he hardware, but also that the _hardware_ supports _Linux._ This is night-and-day different from the bad old days.

macOS 12 is better about interruptions because having different focus modes for work, personal, etc helps a lot. It is the same system on iOS 15 if you have an iPhone or iPad.

Personally, I think it should assume that you don't want to be bothered and allow the user to change it from there.