I have a 2012 macbook pro, the battery life of apple products is notoriously bad under Linux. I got a new battery and still couldn’t get 3 hours of usage out of it.

That aside, linux runs great when you get it to boot. I didn’t have any luck getting Ubuntu to boot but Fedora and Manjaro run really well. I’m a fan of Gnome, I’d recommend walking your friend through different desktop environments.