It might be worth giving ApricityOS[0] a try next time you fancy delving into Linux, I've a lot of good things from ex-Mac users who switched to it.
Somehow never noticed that on macOS - either applications are designed better and only known long tasks change the cursor, or there's a system wide control - show spinner near cursor only if app was in busy state for 500 ms or something.
This year tried out Ubuntu, elementaryOS, Manjaro and Solus. Well, Solus on boot on my system had a black screen, and when booted in VirtualBox on Windows - black screen but atleast network notification showed that I'm connected to the internet, after I dismissed the notification - black screen again.