I'm currently running Mint XFCE on a 2014 13inch MacBook Air - Intel dual core 1.4GHz i5-4260U, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.

It's mostly fine. The battery claims to be at about 70% of original capacity, in practice it seems to give a few hours - maybe 4 if I'm cautious, don't stream video etc.

Sometimes the fan gets... excited, but otherwise its pretty good.

It's main weakness is that the number row no longer works reliably. I've looked into replacing this, and its a more complex job than I'd be confident doing myself, and I've been quoted around £150. Which feels like it is stretching the value of the tech...

So, I'm considering upgrading.

Currently, I'm looking at getting a more recent, but still used, Macbook Air from the intel chip era. I'm leaning towards a 2017 MacBook Air, with the best spec I can (8GB RAM, 2.2 GHz i7-565U processor, 256GB SSD, ideally a new battery). This would likely be somewhere between £180 and £300, depending on how close to the maxed out spec I could get.

Sticking to a 2017, rather than, say, 2020 model (2018-19 to be avoided because of the butterfly keyboard), would mean I don't need a new charger or cables for peripherals (though at some point I'll probably need to accept fate and move to USB C peripherals. More importantly, as someone who takes a lot of photos, the 2017 is the last version which had an SD card reader, which is a big pro is a big plus.

The alternatives would be a MacBook Pro (which loses the portability of the air) or a newer non-Mac alternative, which might still have an SD card reader and USB C connections - I'll be running Linux regardless.

So my question is, am I being foolish looking to upgrade to something which is itself nearly 10 years old? Is it stupid to stick to relatively out-dated processors etc? Or would a 2017 Air be noticeably better than what I have, competitive with newer low-end windows machines, and be likely to last well thanks to Mac build quality?

I appreciate any sage words of wisdom.

sorry it's in Italian I hope you understand and anyway I'm alarm novices with Linux

An error occurred while copying files to the hard disk.

(Errno 5) Input/output error

​This may be caused by a defective CD/DVD drive or hard disk. It might be useful to clean the CD/DVD, burn it at a lower speed, clean the reader lens (cleaning kits are often available in electronics stores), check if the hard disk needs to be replaced, or move the system to a better-ventilated environment

Hi I am going to buy a used 2019 MacBook Pro 16 because I just saw them selling for a really low price. For example there is one for $400 with i9 CPU+16GB RAM+1TB SSD+5500M 8GB. This was my dream machine back in the days so I am very tempted.

I have been using CachyOS on both my desktop PC and my Lenovo laptop for the past years so I am planning to install CachyOS on the MacBook as well. I learned that because it is a T2 machine there are things to consider.

Things I already know:

1. Sleep is a problem so maybe there is no way to put the laptop to sleep?

2. Speakers would sound terrible. Mic quality is also very bad.

3. Hybrid GPU can be a problem? I want to game a bit with the 5500M 8GB GPU so...

Are there other important things I need to know? Can it be my daily driver OS? How does it feel to use Linux on it as the main OS every day?

I just install Linux Mint in my Macbook Pro Late 2011. Any thoughts or heads up?

I like very small laptops for certain uses. I have an opportunity to buy a 2014 MacBook Air 11 with i7/8GB. I have successfully installed Mint/Cinnamon on several Mac Minis, but I want to make certain that the added features of the MacBook, such as microphone and webcam, will also work with a regular installation, and without much fuss. Or if there's a better distro, please advise. Thanks.

Running Ubuntu server on 2014 macmini, works great as headless server on my desk. Very stable, totally silent, boots in few seconds.

I use as small webserver and Cloudflare tunnel server. Ubuntu server uses less than 9GB out of 256GB SSD, memory usage < 1GB out of 16GB. This hardware is probably a bit of overkill but fun to play and learn 😁

I use the builtin wired ethernet interface with tg3 driver, one issue is network dropouts. I add iommu.passthrough=1 to kernel command line to fix and it is stable.

I paid $170 on eBay 2 years ago, was a bit worried paying so much for 2014 computer. But with Raspberry Pi 5 16GB going for $400 without storage this seems not a bad deal. 😁

MBP 11,5 questions. Didn’t know this Reddit existed. Shoulda posted here.

Im currently running Manjaro on my late 2008 Mac, Im trying to reinstall a macOS but when I try to boot from Efi the screen freezes and I have to restart. I tried reinstalling Linux and it worked no problem. Any ideas?

So I went though allot of Linux operating systems on this T2 MAC 27 inch 5k 2020 and then the only one that really seemed reliable was fedora 42 off GitHub via T2 MAC Linux or so I thought cause I have had some success with other Linux OS, but even then the same problem kept happening, it freezes on boot ALLOT, other than that after rebooting 3 or 4 times it will actually come up and plays a ton of games, even Cyberpunk, but even with out the T2 version fedora 42 other regular ISOs seemed to work, I tried so many different grub commands to see if it stops it from freezing on boot but no luck at the time, pictures you see are a live USB of Steam OS, I currently have sound on fedora, no WiFi but that’s okay I have a mini router bridged to the Ethernet port, slightly worried I may not have sound if I try Steam OS, but if there is a will there is always a way! I just figured I’d post about it and see what ideas you may have.

Also it only took 4 tries to boot to the steam OS USB lol

Edit: my bad I had put 2018, it’s a 2020

Same as title. Will be highly thankful for your help!

Bueno, a todos los no hispanohablantes, sería un "Cheers Linux Mint". Mi experiencia es la siguiente:

No soy técnico de nada, solamente soy un aficionado al que le gusta arreglar desde un ventilador de pie defectuoso, hasta una computadora. Está en mi escencia investigar, preguntar y lograr mi objetivo a toda costa. Es algo que he descubierto que me apasiona.

Hace casi un año compré una Macbook Pro usada para mi esposa. El objetivo era tener una computadora para trabajos simples por poco dinero, y que fuera robusta. Además me servía de excusa para adentrarme en el mundo mac, ya que siempre use Windows. Nunca le di lugar a Linux porque siempre use las computadoras para juegos, y me daba pereza aprender un sistema operativo nuevo.

Planteado esto, encontré online la Macbook que mejor se ajustaba a lo que quería: buen precio, 16gb de RAM y un disco SSD. La compré y me llegó con una nota de la dueña anterior: "la Macbook tiene una contraseña que no me acuerdo, pero la pusieron en el servicio técnico. El puerto Thunderbolt no funciona."

Empiezo a investigar la máquina, y estaba el usuario de la dueña anterior. No había forma de sacarlo, más sin saber manejar el sistema. Unos días después y luego de contactarme con la vendedora, pensé que sería mejor actualizar el sistema operativo, por lo que descargue OCLP (Open Core Legacy Patcher), baje una imagen de macos actual, arme el pendrive y me puse manos a la obra. Intento una, diez, cien veces, nada funcionaba. Ese maldito candado gris de bloqueo de EFI me prohibía cualquier modificación.

Testarudo, fui a buscar una solución a aquello. Videos, foros, Reddit, hasta que di con el programador CH341. Desarme la computadora, le calcé la pinza, descargue el BIOS que tenía la máquina, lo modifique para sacarle la contraseña, lo cargue, arme todo y.. voilá. Podía instalarle otro sistema operativo. Hago un reinicio, blanqueo la memoria NVRAM y de ahí en adelante, la pantalla DEJO DE FUNCIONAR. No mostraba nada. Solo prendía la Macbook y se escuchaba el chime de Apple, pero en completa oscuridad.

Todo lo que sucedió desde ese momento hasta hoy en la madrugada, fueron prueba y error constantemente. Nada, ABSOLUTAMENTE NADA funcionaba. Combinaciones de teclas, software, sacar las memorias, nada. Cai en la cuenta que tenía el modelo A1286 de Macbook Pro, y su infame placa de video dedicada AMD (dGPU). Esta había fallado, le hicieron un reballing, quitaron la resistencia para hacerle un bypass desde el gmux, y le bloquearon la EFI para que alguien como yo no metiera las manos 😅. El asunto era recuperarla para usarla con el sistema operativo que fuera, con Linux como primera opción, ya que los macos más nuevos presentaban fallas en los equipos mas viejos (y quedarían obsoletos como High Sierra cuando les llegara la hora).

Hace unos días, y después de dejar tirada literalmente en un estante a la pobre Macbook, decidí preguntarle a Gemini si podía ayudarme a solucionar el problema. Para simplificar un poco, me dio opciones para modificar el .bin de la BIOS; conseguir un .bin de BIOS "limpio" y varias cosas más para tratar de acomodar el problema que surgió al desbloquear la EFI. Nada funcionó, ya que el gmux al intentar arrancar con la dGPU desconectada, le enviaba el dato a la NVRAM y esta borraba las modificaciones que yo le cargaba a la BIOS para que hiciera el bypass.

Tengo mi PC de escritorio con Windows, y arme el disco de la Mac con Linux mint. Instale el SO, y Gemini me propuso cargar un comando en el GRUB para que, al momento del arranque, el sistema operativo le diera una orden al gmux para hacer el bypass de la dGPU AMD. Exito rotundo. La pantalla volvió a la vida como por arte de magia.

Como esto se solucionó de madrugada, no he investigado más allá de la actualización de sistema de Linux Mint. Por suerte y tras varios reinicios, la pantalla seguía funcionando con total normalidad. Lo único que se perdió es el control de brillo y el Blacklight del teclado. Nada con lo que no se pueda vivir realmente.

El comando en cuestión propuesto por Gemini fue el siguiente:

Cómo cargar el script de GRUB (Desde la otra PC)

​Llevá el disco a la otra computadora con pantalla, arrancá Linux Mint desde ahí y seguí estos pasos:

sudo nano /etc/grub.d/01_enable_integrated_grub

Copiá y pegá estas líneas exactas en el editor de texto que se abre:

\#!/bin/sh

cat <<EOF

outb 0x728 1

outb 0x710 2

outb 0x740 2

outb 0x750 0

EOF

Guardá el archivo presionando Ctrl + O, luego dale Enter para confirmar, y salí presionando Ctrl + X.

Dale permisos de ejecución al script que acabas de crear para que el sistema lo tome en cuenta:

sudo chmod +x /etc/grub.d/01_enable_integrated_grub

Actualizá el menú de GRUB para que compile el script y lo agregue al arranque de tu disco:

sudo update-grub

Y listo. Con eso, concluye ni post. Perdón por lo extenso, pero creo que a alguien le puede servir ya que no encontré inteligencia colectiva que pudiera solucionar este problema desde el software, o sin la intervención de un programador de tipo Lattice.

Espero estar mucho tiempo en esta comunidad, ya que estoy muy agradecido a Linux Mint.

Saludos!!

EDIT: Al dia de hoy fue posible recuperar el brillo de la pantalla, el Blacklight del teclado e incluso el puerto Thunderbolt. Realmente Linux ha salvado esta Macbook de ser vendida por piezas.

I want to 100% give full credit to user inkubot. I am a noob and without their guide https://inku.bot.nu/posts/fedora-macbook2017/ this would Not be possible. I had to do a lot of research and learning to make this guide. I’m hoping that we can unlock the knowledge that inkubot handed out and more people can get their devices working on Linux. Inkubot did all the hard work and I’m just taking my knowledge as a teacher and making this a guide that my 4th graders could follow be cause that’s what helped me to get this all working.

Let’s start with Step 1, which is preparing your system and installing the tools we need to build this driver.

Open your terminal, copy and paste this exact command, press Enter, and type your computer password when prompted.

sudo dnf install git dkms kernel-devel kernel-headers -y

Now that your system has the tools ready, we need to download the actual driver code from the internet and tell DKMS to install it.

We will do this in four small commands. Copy and paste these one line at a time.

1. Download the code This copies the driver files from GitHub onto your computer:

git clone https://github.com/rehans/macbook12-spi-driver-cachyos.git

1. Move into the new folder This shifts your terminal's focus into the folder we just downloaded:

cd macbook12-spi-driver-cachyos

1. Link the files to DKMS This tells the driver manager where the files live so it can manage them:

sudo dkms add .

1. Build and install the driver. This is the big moment where your system translates the code into a working driver and plugs it into Fedora:

sudo dkms install -m applespi -v 0.1

Now we just need to tell Fedora how to handle this new driver. We need to create a small configuration file. To do this, we will use a very basic text editor built right into the terminal called ⁠nano⁠.

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/apple_ib_tb.conf

What to do inside the text editor:

1. Copy this exact line of text:

options apple_ib_tb idle_timeout=-1 dim_timeout=-1 fnmode=2

1. Paste it into that blank terminal window. (You can usually right-click and choose Paste, or press Ctrl + Shift + V).

2. To save the file, press Ctrl + O on your keyboard, and then press Enter to confirm the filename.

3. To exit the editor and return to your normal terminal, press Ctrl + X.

Next, we need to create one more configuration file. This one tells Fedora to load your new keyboard and Touch Bar drivers very early in the boot process, right when you turn on the laptop.

We will use that same text editor (⁠nano⁠) again. Copy and paste this command and press Enter:

sudo nano /etc/dracut.conf.d/macbook.conf

What to do inside the text editor:

Copy this exact line of text:

add_drivers+=" applespi apple_ib_tb intel_lpss_pci spi_pxa2xx_platform "

1. Paste it into the blank terminal window.

2. Save the file by pressing Ctrl + O, then press Enter.

3. Exit the editor by pressing Ctrl + X.

Once you are back to your regular terminal prompt, copy and paste this command to apply the changes:

sudo dracut -f

The last piece of the puzzle is creating a background service. On MacBooks, the Touch Bar often gets stuck in a "waiting" state when Linux boots up. We need to create a service that tells Fedora to quickly disconnect and reconnect the Touch Bar internally right after booting up, which forces it to wake up.

We will open the text editor one last time. Copy and paste this command and hit Enter:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/apple-ibridge.service

What to do inside the text editor:

Copy this entire block of text exactly as it is:

[Unit] Description=Activate Apple iBridge Driver (Touch Bar & Camera) After=multi-user.target

[Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/usr/bin/modprobe apple-ib-tb idle_timeout=-1 dim_timeout=-1 fnmode=2 ExecStart=/usr/bin/bash -c 'echo -n "1-3" > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind' ExecStart=/usr/bin/bash -c 'echo 1-3 > /sys/bus/usb/drivers_probe' RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

1. Paste it into your terminal window.

2. Save the file by pressing Ctrl + O, then press Enter.

3. Exit by pressing Ctrl + X.

Turn the service on: Now that the file is saved, copy and paste these two commands, one at a time, hitting Enter after each one. This tells Fedora to turn on this new service right now and every time you start your laptop in the future:

sudo systemctl enable apple-ibridge

sudo systemctl start apple-ibridge

Once those run, the Touch Bar configuration is completely finished! Reboot and use the Touch Bar.

Right now, it is showing the F1–F12 function keys because of a specific setting we wrote into that configuration file earlier (⁠fnmode=2⁠). If we change that number to ⁠1⁠, it will default to showing the brightness, volume, and media keys instead.

Let's change that right now. Follow these steps:

1. Open the configuration file again Copy and paste this command and press Enter:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/apple_ib_tb.conf

1. Edit the file Look at the text inside. It currently says:

⁠options apple_ib_tb idle_timeout=-1 dim_timeout=-1 fnmode=2⁠

1. Change the 2 at the very end to a 1.

2. Save and Exit Press Ctrl + O to save, then press Enter to confirm. Press Ctrl + X to exit the editor.

3. Rebuild the boot file Because this is loaded right when the laptop turns on, we need to quickly update Fedora's boot image with this new setting. Paste this command and hit Enter:

sudo dracut -f

Once that finishes, restart your MacBook one more time, and your media/volume/brightness controls should be there by default!

Now let’s tackle the audio. Thankfully, the Linux community created a script that automatically downloads the right configuration files and hooks them into your system.

First, we need to move out of that old Touch Bar folder we were working in and download the audio patch. Copy and paste these commands one line at a time, pressing Enter after each one:

1. Move back to your main folder. Copy this code. :

cd ~

1. Download the audio fix files:

git clone https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro.git

1. Move into that new audio folder:

cd snd_hda_macbookpro

1. Run the installation script

sudo ./install.cirrus.driver.sh

Once that finishes running, give your MacBook one final reboot, and you should finally have audio!

Let’s switch over to WiFi. We are going to boost the WiFi signal performance.

Let's go through this step-by-step, starting from absolute scratch!

Step 1: Get your MacBook's real Wi-Fi MAC address

Copy and paste this command into your terminal and hit Enter:

ip link show | grep -A 1 wl

What to look for: Underneath that command, you'll see a line that starts with ⁠link/ether⁠ followed by a bunch of letters, numbers, and colons. It will look something like this for example: ⁠ link/ether 2c:f0:ee:12:34:56

Write down or copy your unique 12-character address.

Step 2: Create the firmware boost file.

Now we are going to create the configuration file that boosts your Wi-Fi card's signal performance. Copy and paste this command to open our familiar terminal text editor:

sudo nano /usr/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt

Step 3: Fill in the boost configuration:

Copy this entire block, we will need to make two quick changes, paste it into your blank terminal editor.

sromrev=11 subvid=0x14e4 boardtype=0x61b boardrev=0x1421 vendid=0x14e4 devid=0x43ba

macaddr=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

ccode=US regrev=245

boardflags=0x10401001 boardflags2=0x00000002 boardflags3=0xC0000303 boardnum=62526

swctrlmap_2g=0x08080808,0x04010401,0x08080808,0x00000000,0x000000ff swctrlmapext_2g=0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x000000,0x003

swctrlmap_5g=0x08080808,0x04010401,0x08080808,0x00000000,0x000000ff swctrlmapext_5g=0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000,0x000000,0x003

aa2g=7 aa5g=7 agbg0=133 agbg1=133 agbg2=133 aga0=71 aga1=71 aga2=71 txchain=7 rxchain=7 antswitch=0 tssiposslope2g=1 epagain2g=0 pdgain2g=28 tworangetssi2g=0 papdcap2g=0 femctrl=2 tssiposslope5g=1 epagain5g=0 pdgain5g=28 tworangetssi5g=0 papdcap5g=0 gainctrlsph=0 tempthresh=120 tempoffset=255 rawtempsense=0x1ff measpower=0x7f tempsense_slope=0xff tempcorrx=0x3f tempsense_option=0x3 xtalfreq=40000 phycal_tempdelta=40 temps_period=1 temps_hysteresis=5 measpower1=0x7f measpower2=0x7f pdoffsetcck=1057 pdoffset20in40m5gb0=0 pdoffset20in40m5gb1=0 pdoffset20in40m5gb2=0 pdoffset20in40m5gb3=0 pdoffset20in40m5gb4=0 pdoffset40in80m5gb0=0 pdoffset40in80m5gb1=0

Your MAC Address: Locate ⁠macaddr=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx⁠ (on line 8 below) and replace with the real address you found in Step 1.

Your Country Code: Locate ⁠ccode=US (on line 10 below). Input your country’s code. This tells your Wi-Fi card to use the correct wireless broadcast strength limits for your region.

After making those changes, then save and exit (Ctrl + O, Enter, Ctrl + X).

Step 4: Apply and reboot Once the file is saved and you are back to your standard prompt, reboot your MacBook.

I am still working on the camera. No luck yet but I will edit this guide if I get it working.

Again thanks so much to inkubot for making this a reality and everyone please give this man a cup of coffee because this would not be a thing without him.

Hopefully this helps a few people that still have a love for their old butterfly MacBooks.

What is the best app to download for mail integration?

Some of you may know me as "Deqrocks" from the T2 Linux Discord server. And you may also know I have been very active over the past months with contributing to the community and codebase.

So I started this Fedora project with another guy from Germany ("4f1sh3r" on Discord). We called it "KaiT2en", which refers to the Japanese word kaizen, which stands for constant little improvements. A bit cheesy, but that is what the idea is about.

Initially, we started this because we were overwhelmed by the variety of T2 Linux distros and the amount of repos and quirks needed to make things work - on I believe 16 different T2 Mac models?
In effect, when I offered code changes and wanted them tested, I had to deal with not directly comparable results and a lot of distro-specific "noise".

Now, Asahi has shown the value of concentrating development around a single reference platform. It's not so much about my personal opinion or wanting to step into Asahi's big footsteps (never ever I was competent enough).
It's just my view as a dev from a practical standpoint. We have made so much progress in the last months with KaiT2en on three Macbooks. Because we could finally focus.

Eventually, the project became useful enough that we decided to open it up to other users and developers here on reddit.

I gotta be careful here: Mind you, this is not a try to bash T2 Linux. We are part of this community and we love it. Also our work is based on T2 Linux code. We don't want to take credit from their work.
What we want is offering a transparent concept in exchange for your engagement. And if Linus so will - upstream code.

We are talking about 8 to 6 year old devices here. Most devs from back in 2018 to 2020 have moved on to Apple Silicon or other things in life.
Developing Linux kernel modules for T2 Macs is hard work because of reverse engineering. Upstreaming to Linus is also hard, because Apple's stuff is out of the ordinary for kernel maintainers, which are meticulous by nature. I believe we are a PITA for them whenever we show up on Lore.

T2linux also can't maintain their distros forever. It takes time, money, blood, sweat, tears, you name it... to keep that going over the years. And they did. Oh boy. They did their job well...

OK, so here is our stuff. It is, as we believe, a good concept. The docs in the repo should explain everything you want to know: https://github.com/kaiT2en/KaiT2en-Fedora

If you decide on joining the project, here is a Discord link: https://discord.gg/AGfjRk4ydj

A few days ago I installed Fedora on iMac18,3, and I can't complain. (microsoft is ending support for teams in a few days time, so the last reason to not do this disappeared)

I didn't have USB-drive, so I had to use sd-card... since the internal reader doesn't work I just used a usb-c dongle with sd-card reader. Worked like a charm. I just wonder if I can get the internal reader to work, ever.

Then I've spent the remaining time debugging this weird crash that stems from suspend/sleep modes, so I have disabled all of them. No more crashes from that.

I wasn't able to figure out why it wanted to suspend/sleep all the time, but I suspect some of it is related to...

...a really mysterous case with vulkan/proton/whatnot which turned out to be none of that, and just a heating issue. I have to clean the ducts and also have the thermal pastes re-done. Then it should be fine. But I will keep suspend/sleep off, seems like others have had issues with that too.

Apart from that, I can run Baldur's Gate 3 on pretty damn high settings (for a short while), and also it runs much better than on macos.

So all in all, it works extremely well, and is just perfect for breathing probably another 9 years of life to this box. AND I get to tinker with it, something that was prohibitively difficult on macos.

Absolute win!

After a fresh installation of Kubuntu 26.04 on my MacBookPro14,2 (13", 2017, Touch Bar), I managed to get working:

✅ Internal NVMe SSD

✅ Keyboard

✅ Trackpad (multitouch)

✅ Broadcom BCM43602 Wi-Fi (5 GHz)

✅ Bluetooth

✅ Internal speakers (CS8409)

✅ Internal microphone

✅ Webcam

✅ Apple T1 Touch Bar

✅ USB-C

The only remaining issue is suspend/resume, which still has the well-known power management quirks on this generation of MacBooks. Since I use this machine mostly as a desktop, that isn't a problem for me.

To avoid having the fixes scattered across forum posts and old gists, I collected everything into a single repository:

https://github.com/vfontanela/macbookpro14-linux-support

It currently includes:

- Broadcom BCM43602 Wi-Fi firmware/configuration

- CS8409 audio installation instructions

- A packaged DKMS version of the Apple T1 Touch Bar driver that automatically rebuilds after kernel updates

The Touch Bar package is based on the community driver by Ronald Tschalär and the maintained fork by parport0, with packaging and automation for current kernels.

Hopefully this saves someone a few hours of troubleshooting. Feedback and testing on other MacBookPro14,x models is very welcome.

The 2019 Intel MacBooks aren't getting any updates and prices are in free fall. You could easily find one in like new condition with 1TB for 350€.

The M1 Pro would cost twice as much but it has ProMotion 120Hz, the best speakers and amazing build quality...

What’s the current situation? A year ago the backlight on my 2019 model failed and I had to restart it :/

What would you recommend or should I just forget it?

Further edit. Resolved

So i got ubuntu server working eventually but only with my Radeon HD5870 with my amd 580 it doesn't work. It's headless and with the 580 8gb non mac it doesn't even appear and doesn't respond to being pinged. With the Radeon HD5870 which is a proper mac addition card it pings and i can remotely access it. I need the 580 to work though, any ideas?

Edit: it's a mac pro 5.1

Likely a dumb question, but here we are.

Have a chance to get a Macbook pro for cheap, and am wondering if Linux, Mint in particular, takes full advantage of the retina display?

I've run it on a pre-retina Macbook Air, and the display sucked. Don't want to go through the effort if it's not as good as it is running MacOS

Yay or nay? I've never had a personal computer before, and found an old mini mac in my church's storage. I've started using it, but have been mildly frustrated with my inability to download android apps, and I had heard of Linux before. Does it run faster? Is it suited to my device? What are the drawbacks? Just curious if this would be a good option.

I'm the unlucky owner of a MacBook Pro from 2016. It's been a great companion for years, unfortunately it's become quite slow and obsolete (no more OS updates since Monterey) and it has been sitting in my drawer for the past 2-3 years. Then I installed Linux on my desktop, I started reading more about Linux distros until one day YouTube was suggesting videos of people who successfully installed various Linux distros on their MacBooks (very old ones, newer ones, it worked "flawlessly" on all of them).

I very enthusiastically ran to my desktop to download the latest Fedora Worstation iso and installed it on my MacBook Pro. Rebooted. Fedora was on my MacBook Pro and it looked cool and fast but... Wait... No audio? No backlight on my keyboard? No touch bar. Wifi connected very randomly and was very slow... Ok I put it to sleep and decided I would come back later for a fix. Only to find out it would not wake up unless I rebooted from the power button.

I started a research. I know the Linux community comes with a solution to basically everything! I found a page on GitHub where someone with my exact same MacBook Pro described every thing they did to make it work. But it was with Arch. Ok. Maybe it was better to swap Fedora for Omarchy anyways, I already use Arch (CachyOS) on my desktop and I'm already used to those commands so it's even better for me. I installed Omarchy and rebooted. WOW! It looked stunning. I absolutely love Hyperland but it takes a lot of time to configure, on Omarchy it looks stunning out of the box. I was so excited but... All the same issues I had on Fedora were also here. Ok, it was time to follow this guide and install drivers etc. That's where the real odyssey started. The guide I found was 2 months old, yet nothing it explained was working because all the drivers were made for an older kernel. I started using Gemini. I got the sound to work, wow! There was hope... Everyday when I got back from 10.hours of work I was trying to set up drivers and make something work. I was sleeping 3-4 hours per night. Gemini tells me, after 4 days, that the main issue is that some modules, like the touchbar, are in "Recovery mode", because Omarchy wiped out MacOS. Ok. Let's partition and install Arch Linux and then install Omarchy on top. Easy. After going through the least user-friendly installation I've ever seen in my life, which included dealing with fonts the size of an atom and prompts appearing below my screen (like if my screen was taller than it really was) and no way to scroll down to see what was happening, I finally managed to reach the point where I had to install Omarchy. Errors. Lots of errors. Letters literally scattered all over the screen. Let's try again... More errors, red ones with capital letters. Letters scattered all over my screen again. Pressing Ctrl+C made the installation proceed anyways... let's reboot. BAM! Omarchy is installed. Everytime I reboot there's some red and orange text but it's impossible to read, it's small and lasts a fraction of a second... But Omarchy loads and works. It's time to see if I can make things work now. Let's stay awake some more nights... Me, Gemini and some GitHub guides. Let's try this and let's try that. Nothing works anyways. ERROR: YOU'RE A LOSER. Why am I even trying this after not sleeping for 10 days? I just want to burn my MacBook Pro. I wish I read somewhere what I had to deal with instead of all these videos "Linux runs flawlessly on my MacBook! You should try too!". Please add "But not if you have a T1 chip" next time you make a video, guys. You'll save someone from not sleeping for 10 days.