Font rendering in Linux distros is actually pretty good these days—the problem is that the free fonts don't look right if you're used to the Mac defaults, and the font rendering settings are a little off by default.
Without installing any third-party software, I actually recently found a way to make fonts in a Linux desktop look mostly the same as they do on Mac. This was done on Debian Stretch under GNOME 3.
Step 1: I copied all the TTF font files from my Mac and installed them into Debian, instantly giving me all the awesome (but non-libre) fonts I'm used to.
Step 2: I disabled all font hinting (I think this was in some GNOME config, might have been xorg.something but I honestly don't remember, just google how to disable hinting).
After this, browsing the web in Chrome looked (to my eyes) just like it did on the Mac. If you're wishing for a more Windows-y text rendering experience, you'll want hinting, but the Mac generally stays away from hinting (at the expense of slightly blurrier but prettier fonts on low DPI screens).
Without installing any third-party software, I actually recently found a way to make fonts in a Linux desktop look mostly the same as they do on Mac. This was done on Debian Stretch under GNOME 3.
Step 1: I copied all the TTF font files from my Mac and installed them into Debian, instantly giving me all the awesome (but non-libre) fonts I'm used to.
Step 2: I disabled all font hinting (I think this was in some GNOME config, might have been xorg.something but I honestly don't remember, just google how to disable hinting).
After this, browsing the web in Chrome looked (to my eyes) just like it did on the Mac. If you're wishing for a more Windows-y text rendering experience, you'll want hinting, but the Mac generally stays away from hinting (at the expense of slightly blurrier but prettier fonts on low DPI screens).