> It may be wise to first try the switch on your current Mac, inside a Virtual Machine …
This is exactly what I'm doing. I run Spacemacs in a Ubuntu VM running on Parallels. I'm not too sure if I would be willing to move away from the OS X apps ecosystem though (I use 1Password, Day One, OmniFocus, iBooks, Notes, Photos etc and they all sync perfectly with the iPhone).
I have been meaning to switch to Linux, however I am yet to find something that has as good of a display quality (retina fonts) as the Mac. How is the XPS like?
https://github.com/juspay/nix-dev-home