Works great. Had Linux Mint running on a 2008 Unibody MacBook. If your Msc is a dual graphics model, Linux might even be the only software way to revive it (or ensure it keeps running. The dedicated graphics always break and you can disable them in GRUB). Have Mint running on one of those for my grandparents as well. The only gotcha for Linux on Intel Macs would be the wireless drivers but I know that Mint's Driver tool will do the work for you nicely. You might just need an ethernet connection for the installation. There are no further incompatibilities that I know of.

Alternatively, if you’d rather run macOS on a Mac: Open Core Legacy Patcher is a tool born out of the hackintosh community that allows you to run current macOS versions on unsupported Macs fairly well. The same 2008 Unibody Macbook did a decent job running macOS Ventura.

Only recommendation in either case would be to throw in a cheap SSD. The old non Retina Macs are easily upgradeable and not running on spinning rust can make the system much more responsive, no matter which OS you’re running. And if you’re already in there, the RAM is also easily upgradeable and 8GB get you a lot farther than 4GB. And DDR3 SODIMMs are also getting ridiculously cheap.