I am currently in the process of doing this to; I have been using raspberry pi’s off and on for years for pihole, I think pihole is always going to be part of my network now that I have fallen down the rabit hole of home labbing. I had practically already given up on MacOS for iOS and was more than happy to SSH, VNC, or use apps WebUI with the raspberry pi’s. I was more than fine with the AppleTV, whatever the subscription service was called, iCloud, and whatever else I was paying for. The services where the first to go, I had pi 5’s with PoE++ NVMe hats with drives in a few of them so I started using Jellyfin for some of my things; than later on I started using the *arr apps to get and follow TV shows and Movies, if buying is not owning pirating is not stealing. I had already had a personal domain but they did not have a wildcard email service so I did the calculations and it was going to be less expensive to get the business plan for unlimited email address (I already had well over 100 apple hide my email addresses) for four years than it was going to be for Apple’s hide my service so I had done that, as I had a formula for creating random email addresses (Service name).(Saskatchewan slang)(3 random numbers)@my domain.ca I was peachy with that but it got frustrating needing to go to the webpage create a new address than sign up (or renew my trial period) for a service. I eventually dropped them and moved to easydns who offered wildcard email addresses, so I could create email addresses on the fly. And they where considerable less expensive.

As I had said I started using the *arr apps after I started using Jellyfin was because my place flooded and my TV was put into storage, I had just been using the channel apps on the AppleTV for them to bring up the shows I was watching but the TV app on my iPad was not nearly as good so off to the high seas I went and found the *arr apps, I had tried coding a script to watch for TV shows but that failed horribly.

The boycott the US movement had also started here in Canada, so me being a good little Canadian girl wanted to limit the amount of US services I was using, so that meant moving away from Apple. I had orignally paid for a hosted version of Nextcloud on a Canadian server, but I quickly fell out of love with Nextcloud, I felt that it tried to do to much and failed at most of it. I thought I would self host it and work out the things that did not work, I ended up forgetting about it and just self hosting seperate services for things like my calendars, contacts, notes, and whatever else. I may go back to it for files though, right now they are just in a smb share.

I had an extra pi 5 just hanging out hosting my blog so I thought I could put it on something else so I got a VPS from easyDNS, more or less to get it off my LAN I thought it was the pi 5 hosting Jellyfin that was making my jellyfin things choppy and the such so I thought hey I have a 2014 mac mini just collecting dust I could install Debian on it and Jellyfin would just magically work on the pi 5 attached to my TV, this could not be further from the truth. My father is going to be replacing his 2018 Mac Mini soon so I am going to be getting it handed down to me so that I can install Debian on it and attach it to my TV, it sadly does not have CSC but I think I will get HA to fix that.

Thinking about HA, I have HAOS running on a pi 4 to replace apple Home and a few other services. I sadly still have two home pod minis but they work with home assistant, I have 2 pi zero 2s that I want to get microphone and speakers for to work with the nabu system.

I use Vaultwarden to replace Apple passwords, I get all the paid for benefits of Bitwarden but it is running on a pi 5, being backed up to my VPS. I use immich for all my photos, again backed up to my VPS.

Because I was bored out of my mind with half my place going through the process of insurance I got a Flint 2 that I could install vanilla openWRT on and get static IP addresses from my ISP my orignal plan was to self host a email server hence 2 IP addresses, but I like my hair and I really did not want to pull it all out! I have a domain so I installed the Caddy docker image on one of my pi 5’s and I can access all my things away from the LAN.

I sadly still have not replaced the homepods, the iphone, the ipad, or the watch. I entend on replacing the homepods soon, the iPhone next year because updates are done, the ipad in a few years when I have the money for a Laptop (as much as I hate it being a US company I will probably replace it with a frame work), and the watch needs replacing but I like apple’s wallet I will need to find an alternative for it once I replace my phone.

Side note I have an old iPad in my kitchen running HA kiosk so I can see a few things.

I can recommend Garmin watches. They work with both Android and iOS which could help with the transition. They have a variety of models from casual/stylish to very fitness focused. They tend to be more expensive, but they also have not (yet) enshittified, which is worth something to me.

So I’ve been working through this myself recently. I was pretty deep into the ecosystem and frankly there’s not a replacement for everything, but most of it’s close enough for me. Much of this will depend on what you’re really wanting to accomplish.

For Mac you didn’t mention whether it’s an Apple Silicon or Intel device, so this is going to all be specific to my experience which is with Asahi Fedora Remix on an M1 MacBook:
I use the GNOME version since I think the UX has some Apple familiarity and works well for laptops but Plasma is probably a better choice for a desktop.
It’s generally very stable but it doesn’t really have anything yet to easily translate x64 apps to ARM - there’s muvm, but if what you’re trying to run isn’t covered by the included libraries (e.g. Electron apps) you’re going to have to build an overlay filesystem image containing the dependencies you need; it doesn’t “just work” like Rosetta (or in the Windows world, Prism).
You will also lose some of the stuff like Touch ID because reverse engineering the SEP and sepOS are still in progress. Battery life also isn’t as good.
Lastly, Linux desktop security simply isn’t comparable to any modern build of macOS. TCC on macOS provides incredibly robust protections for user data and device access that Windows and Linux simply don’t offer (yet). On the bright side with Asahi, you do still get some decent protection against low-level compromise because each OS (“container”) on Apple Silicon has its own verified boot chain and recoveryOS, which is largely immutable, can in theory be used to nuke an infected install.

I replaced my iPhone with a Graphene Pixel, but I mostly just use it for web browsing and email and I was an Android user for a long time prior so I can’t speak to whether this would be an easy transition or not.

My replacements for Apple services so far are:

• iCloud Drive: Nextcloud with a Managed Service Provider with Cryptomator to approximate the end-to-end encryption offered by the Advanced Data Protection option.
• iCloud Private Relay: Mullvad, though any trustworthy VPN should do. Note that it’s not an exact replacement because iCloud Private Relay traffic originates from Apple IP ranges which tend to have a much better reputation than VPNs and thus run into anti-bot measures less frequently.
• iCloud Mail, Calendar, Contacts: Tuta mail + Addy.io for the “Hide my Email” aliasing component.
• iCloud Keychain: Proton Pass, though whether you’d want to trust Proton at this point is another topic of discussion that’s out of scope here.
• iCloud Photos: I’ve recently tried out Zeitkapsl and have been extremely pleased with it. Their desktop app originally didn’t have an ARM Linux build so I reached out to see if one might eventually happen and within a day or two their team had one ready.

There are other viable options for most or all of these; I had a pretty specific set of requirements in mind when making my choices: no documented data collection or sharing beyond what’s absolutely strictly necessary, no Google analytics or push notifications, European owned and hosted, end-to-end encrypted where possible, no advertising, no profiling, etc.

If you have any questions let me know, hope this helps though!

Focus on services before devices. iCloud to Nextcloud, iPhoto to Immich, HomeKit to Home Assistant, etc. You can start using them concurrently, alongside Apple services so you still have that safety net while you figure things out. Most self-hosted services will have iOS/MacOS/TVOS clients so you can start using them now. Then when you’re ready to swap a device, you’re mostly ready to go.

I’ve been working on this myself after being all in on the Apple ecosystem since 2006. So far, I’ve moved to Jellyfin for my media, and made the Nexcloud and Immich switches. The most important thing here is that as you start to self host more important things like photos and documents, have a good way to back up that data.

Ive been deeply entrenched in the apple ecosystem, and I did eventually switch. key for me, similar to what other people said, was to switch the programs/ apps first. by moving to Firefox (zen), thunderbird, Libre office, Obsidian/zettlr, immich and the likes on apple first, I was able to swap out the OS without the need to relearn much.

so, my recommendation would be to get her the replacements, step by step, and give her time to get to know them, whilst having the previous defaults as fallback.

One pitfall I see people fall into is expecting to find the same level of polish and convenience that Big Tech has in Open Source alternatives.

Trying to find a Macbook, iPhone, or macOS, but it’s Linux is going to be a fool’s errand. They’re different worlds and you shouldn’t expect one to work like the other. Some things have no equivalents and you will have to give them up. Don’t give into the loss aversion. These were traps from the very beginning. You’re just noticing them now. Focus on the newly gained freedom. You’ll have to learn to like freedom more than convenience traps and shiny UIs.

Having said that, Linux has definitely made huge strides in being more user friendly, but realistically, it’s not as seamless as those billion-dollar corporations.

Tether is a useful tool for keeping an iPhone, but switching off MacOS. The main features I use it for are:

• Clipboard access between devices
• Notifications/replies to Messages
  -General notifications

Works over a combo of bluetooth and wifi. It’s not as neat as the MacOS / iOS version, obviously, I was a heavy user of the clipboard sync between phone and laptop and this works well enough to replace it. localsend can do some of the same, but I haven’t found it all that reliable.

https://github.com/zackb/tether

A clear purpose and clear expectations help. It’s important to remember why using Linux is valuable. It’s what keeps us pushing through, even when it gets tough. It also helps to know that not everything will work right out of the box. And, to an extent, one can assume that that is the cost of using Linux.

One thing that inspires me is Snowden’s quote that says something like “We won’t win with features, but with ethical convictions”.

Now, as to what steps to take, focus on safe-to-fail experiments. Start by making relatively small changes, even within the Apple ecosystem:

• Safari to Firefox
• Pages / Word / Numbers / Excel to LibreOffice
• Photos to Ente or whatever you want to use

Once these changes are part of daily life, you can attempt a transition to Linux.

The idea here is to make change sustainable.

I have partially transitioned from macOS to Linux, in my experience the main thing is to migrate services such as email and passwords. Once you’re using something open source for those on your I devices you’re way less locked in. iCloud wise I’d recommend getting a managed nextcloud instance. It has a lot of the features you need and provides platform agnostic sync. Also, you don’t need to manage your own it security which is a plus is you’re not super technical.

Pick one thing at a time and evaluate alternatives.

The biggest problem is that Apple is an ecosystem, and Linux isn’t. Apple works to make sure that all their stuff is tightly coupled and works well together. Anywhere else, you’re going to have to manage each thing independently, and a lot of stuff isn’t going to work together. Your files, email, calendar, calls and texts, and other messages are all going to be provided by separate systems, and not always handed off from PC to phone.

A relative of mine attempted to move from an iphone to an android phone, and generally move to other services on non-apple patforms. Not really self hosted, but I tried to help a bit in that area too, placing them on some of the things I run. The reason was their own, they saw pictures taken by a friend who had a flagship android phone and thought the pictures were amazing in comparison and wanted to try it. They were not even that deeply into the ecosystem, didn’t have watches or anything, just the cloud services.

Sadly what happened was that apple makes you feel so cozy and content in their UI design that anything even slightly different is really disruptive. It didn’t go well, and the experiment lasted about 6 months and then they were back on an iphone again. I would hear constant complaints and cursing about various UI differences. Touching parts of the screen triggered actions they weren’t expecting, and they couldn’t manage to learn the new workflows. It was sad to watch, and I hope things go better for you. In my opinion Apple is really good at attracting people and slowly convincing them that they don’t have to think for themselves anymore, so then when they try, they no longer feel competent enough to do so.

Edit

Where to start: She’s only indicated interest in Linux, so start there and do the minimum changes needed to make it work. Create a partition on her mac, install a linux distro, and try set it up to replace her mac. The things that you can’t get working are the things she needs to replace with a cross-platform alternative.

While she switches these services (step wise, as discussed below), she can play with the stuff that does work on linux, maybe test different distros if she wants.

Once you’ve got a functioning linux set up that she uses as her daily driver, then you can discuss whether she wants to switch anything else.

End edit

I’m in the process of switching off the apple ecosystem and my main learning so far has been to go slower than you think, change is hard and time consuming. I recommend the following.

1) Switch one thing at a time

I made the mistake of buying new devices before I had switched any service providers. This meant I had to switch and test a new os and multiple new services simultaneously, which was extremely stressful. Switching one thing at a time means the process takes longer but is more likely to keep her motivated and engaged.

2) Plan what to change and the order of the steps

It will help her motivation if she has a goal and knows why she is changing something, particularly if she can find a reason other than just platform compatibility. Think about things like cost, privacy or ethical considerations, practicality of services you two (would like to) share e.g. calendars, shared albums.

Timing also matters. First priority is those services which have compatibility issues with android and/or linux, for which you will need to find a cross-platform alternative. Other services she might only choose to change after switching her OS, to options that aren’t available in the apple ecosystem.

Start with the services she uses a lot or which have strong emotional value. If you can’t switch those, the experiment is over.

3) Osxphotos for faces

Apple photos does not have the option to export a lot of metadata. Particularly relevant for me was that no information on faces is exported, which is something I spent a lot of time on. I switched my photos to Ente, using their recommended approach directly on my iPhone, and none of that metadata transfered.

I recently discovered Osxphotos (on github), which lets you export all the metadata on a mac. That’s actually next on my to do list - export my photos on my mac and reimport them to Ente.

4) Setup the new os in parallel

Install Linux on a partition on her mac, so that she can switch between MacOS and Linux. That gives you time to work out any issues. If she likes it, she will naturally start using Linux more, until eventually it becomes her daily driver.

5) New hardware comes last

Hardware is expensive and it sucks to spend money and then feel like you have to use something which you don’t really like. So use linux on her mac and consider buying a 2nd hand phone to test and play with before switching her sim.

6) Be careful of dependence

Be careful of self-hosting too much for her. Think about what happens if you’re not around for any reason (accidents happen) and ensure she has a good plan and knows how to access and transfer her data from self-hosted to alternative options. That’s why I prefer Ente to Immich.

Also, if your self-hosted services go down at a critical time for her, that could be bad for your relationship.

I’d start with a cell phone first. The last thing you want to do is give up your life to google and microsoft. Get yourself a graphemeOS compatible phone and replace all the apps with open source solutions. There is a (very very brand new) app called Vela Maps that acts just like google maps, only you can choose not to talk to google servers when you do.

Use sync-thing to auto upload photos to a server you control, even her home PC

There are ways to change the linux desktop to look like apple, though I don’t know what they are. possibly KDE?

unfortunately only google pixel tablets work with grapheme OS. There are tablets that are compatible with ubuntu touch

As for the watches, I don’t know of any that are de-googled.

Try to avoid anything that accepts creeptocurrency as donations. Almost without fail these projects go down the shitter. E.g., Proton.

🚫 Crypto Cult Science
“Money corrupts; bitcoin corrupts absolutely. Disregarding all of bitcoin’s shortcomings, a financial instrument that brings out the worst in people—greed—won’t change the world for the better.” —https://www.arscyni.cc/file/crypto_cult_science.html

I would not try to plan a way to replace the whole Apple ecosystem in one fell swoop. It’s just too much. Apple has really good integration between all their products, so you need to unwind it in as low friction a way as you can.

Apple Watch? That’s not going anywhere. Plan around it.

iPhone and iPad? They’re just hardware and they work. Don’t waste time trying to replace them. Changing a user’s OS is a great way to ruin everyone’s day.

iCloud? Here you can get to work. Immich can kill Photos (and save a ton on monthly cloud costs). Email? I would probably leave it alone, unless you just want to sidestep to another provider like Proton. iMessage? Good luck. Apple has that pretty locked down, and no long term user wants to try to get all their friends to install Signal or anything like that.

Try tackling photos first and go from there. You might discover that they pain of switching is so high it’s just not worth going any farther. Or you’ll learn how to navigate the bumps and can be better prepared for the next product you try to de-Apple.