Getting Linux running wasn't difficult. But Mint lost audio (everything else worked), the specialised Mint kernel lost both audio and wifi, and Arch lost both wifi and the onboard keyboard.

I'm sure with tinkering I could eventually get it working, but I'm well past the point of wanting to tinker with hardware and drivers to get Linux working.

Because of the T2 chip it's actually pretty annoying. Mainline kernels I think are still missing keyboard and trackpad support for those models. Plus a host of other issues.

No, there's a bunch of MBP generations in the middle that just never got any Linux attention.