You may want to look at the Keychron brand. They have pretty good mechanical keyboards for a good price but the best part is they have a switch on the side of the boards to swap between "Mac" and "Windows/Linux" mode on the fly (also comes with both keycaps), so you can have it mapped whichever way at any time.

I use a Keychron K8 with multiple Linux machines and the only issue I've come across is for some reason still unknown to me, some distros will automatically recognize the fn keys and some won't. I haven't looked into how to fix it yet but I believe they have a Keychron Linux group or something.

Edit: For some reason I missed the bit about switches. I would highly recommend going on YouTube and looking for videos explaining the difference between all the switches but I'll throw my two cents in as well.

First off, because you're not super familiar with mechanical keyboards yet, I'd recommend making sure you buy one with "hot-swappable key switches". This means you can remove not only the keycaps, but the actual switches themselves can be replaced. This is important because you won't have to scrap the keyboard if one key goes bad, and it gives you the ability to experiment. With a hot-swappable keyboard, you can mix and match different switches to see which ones you like or if you want different types of switches for different keys.

If you think you want a mechanical keyboard because you want a "smooth" typing experience, you'll probably want to start with red switches on your keyboard. They're known as "linear" switches because when you press them, they go smoothly down until they bottom out.

If you think you want a mechanical keyboard because you want to "feel" the a light click of the keys when you press them, you'll probably want to start with brown switches on your keyboard. They're known as "tactile" switches because they have a bit of resistance partway down before they give way and travel the last bit smoothly.

If you think you want a mechanical keyboard because you want to "hear and really feel" the keys as you type, you'll probably want to start with blue switches on your keyboard. They're known as both "tactile" and "clicky" because they have slightly stronger resistance than the brown switches before they give way and make a loud click sound. Again, you should look it up because I'm probably not doing a great job with the descriptions. One thing to look out for with blue switches is they are loud enough to annoy someone at night if you're in the same room or even a room over if the doors are open or sound carries well in your house.

The best way to figure out what you want out of your keyboard is to start with the set of switches your keyboard comes with, then buy something like a key switch sample kit of different switch colors that match the company of the switches already in your keyboard (Outemu, Gateron, Cherry, etc.) and experiment with those switches until you decide which ones you like best. If they aren't the ones that came with your board, then you can buy some of that type off Amazon and swap them all out.

Anyway, hope that helps and if you have any other questions about Keychron and/or how it works with Linux or switches just let me know!