There is no decent option on an alternative operating system. I do not like macOS and its many quirks, especially its extremely gatekept nature, including the system being SURE that what IT wants is the best for me; I understand that this might be an approach that some people prefer, but in my case it's the equivalent of showing a bull a red cloth.

I will say this - and most will not like this - that I'd go out and buy a M* MacBook if they still kept Boot Camp around and let me install Windows 11 ARM on it. I've heard Linux is pretty OK nowadays, but I have some... ideological differences with the staff behind Asahi and it is still a wonky hack that Apple can put their foot down on any day.

Why not virtualise (?) with Parallels? Runs like a beast (M1 mba).

Because I'd prefer to run bare metal and, if I recall correctly, macOS still hogs up 50+ GB on a clean install - and there is no GPU acceleration(? - might be wrong here).

I guess the hardware is extremely locked down. That part is a drag. Application sharing limitations (needing to publish to the app store, more or less) still feels wrong after all these years. There's more but those are the ones that bother me with any frequency

Need to publish to the app store? I have precisely zero app store applications installed. All just downloaded DMGs from the vendor’s website.