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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I had Fedora and Arch on a 2012 Intel MacBook pro, it's running well, I think macos manages power consumption better, either way I believe if you have no dGPU you should be good to go, also you probably must check the Arch wiki Mac page (regardless of what disro you choose)
I had Arch on my trusty 2012 MBP too, right up until my SSD gave out 😓
It ran great while it was alive tho and I’d definitely recommend it.
Linux is the best thing to revive an old beast. I used on my wife 2012 MacBook Pro with upgraded SSD and Ram and it’s now a monster.
I only had to enable RPM fusion for WiFi to work, otherwise everything worked perfectly out of the box.
would you write what flavor you use?
Fedora Workstation with Gnome. Forgot to mention it 😇
It's a model with a screwed aluminum case, meaning I cannot unplug the battery when I don't need it. How long does it last?
Considering that it's a 10-year old battery, it would've already degraded significantly, even if it wasn't being actively used. If battery life is important to you, you should first consider getting a replacement battery.
As to how long it'll last, that can only be answered by you as it depends on which distro you're going to use, what DE/apps you'll run, and your actual usage patterns/workload.
Is there anything apple does better than linux that deserves I don't nuke it?
Adobe CC, or multimedia stuff in general. And the fact that you can run MS Office natively. But if you don't care about that, then just nuke it.
I've seen an Apple battery or two puff up at that age. Highly recommend getting that old battery swapped out.
Battery replacement will also boost your CPU performance, it’s worth spending a bit of money on it.
LMGTFY...
The first hit is a reddit thread asking about the I7 version of the same vintage. Sounds like Pop!OS works better than Ubuntu for that machine at least.
Linux fan here. I run Linux on and old 2008 iMac, a 2009 MacBook Pro, a 2012 MacBook Pro, and a 2017 MacBook Pro. EndeavourOS mostly.
Linux works amazingly on this hardware. Old Apple stuff is great gear and still looks pretty good too.
I have upgraded RAM and storage as much as possible which makes a huge difference. I actually found the 2009 unit sitting on the intake shelf at my local recycling centre. It needed a new battery but has been awesome. I keep it downstairs at home as my other computers are upstairs. I take it with me on trips where I would worry about wrecking a computer ( camping road trips for example ). I can access my Proxmox server to hit a few remote desktops and the beautiful screen and awesome keyboard make it a joy to use.
Where is macOS bette? If we are being honest, any serious macOS user will have accumulated use cases that are not as well met by Linux. Media related especially like photo and video editing. I cannot even find programs like “subler” for Linux which you would think Linux would have. Niche proprietary tools as more common on macOS. So even reading a PDF signed with a certificate can be annoying on Linux ( without Adobe Acrobat or Reader ).
If you are a developer, I would argue Linux is better.
I am a Linux user though so I am the opposite. If you give me a machine running macOS, I want to get Linux on it. For me, Linux is so much better and 10 minutes on a Mac and I will be frustrated with what it cannot do.
Even for a Mac user, Mac hardware becomes much less usable after it falls of support for thee latest macOS as so many apps will quickly become incompatible after. As I run Arch on my 2009 Mac, it has all the software I use totally up-to-date and current with the latest releases available. You just cannot compete with Linux for that.
It’s works fine with lots of different Linux. There’s another person a week or so ago who asked just this very question. The battery lifetime is directly correlated to how many times it’s been drained and recharged, not age.
If you don’t already have a mac, I’d keep a version of macos on there. It’s useful for running native applications and you can use it to download and create boot media for old versions of the operating system to fix other macs you stumble across.
A very neat thing for multibooting different versions of macos that support the apfs file system is that they can be volumes contained inside an apfs partition. That means that if your new version and old version are each 10gb then your apfs partition only has 20gb used and both the versions will see all the free space and be able to use it.
One thing that macos inarguably does better than linux or windows is color management.
I’m speaking as a 25 year linux user: at least take the chance to learn macos. It’s a useful skill to have and it’s good operating system especially on the target hardware.
I am running arch on a 2011 MacBook pro. so, probably. Even if you don't plan on using arch, the wiki has all the info to get you started.
Recently I followed this guide on my late 2013 retina MBP and ended up with a fully working system. Used the latest Ubuntu [edit: 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish] at the time. No hiccups that I recall. I'm not a Linux expert but I am familiar with installing and configuring Debian and Ubuntu. YMMV.
After letting the poor thing gather dust for several years, now I use it most every day.
Edit 2024-03-08 to clarify the release that I used
Checking in with a 2014 27” iMac. It’s still running the original 3TB Fusion Drive, and I stuffed 32gb ram in there too.
I've been doing a bit of distro hopping with it. Have run Ubuntu and Linux Mint with no issues and currently running the latest Kde Neon beautifully.
I have an A1502 Macbook that I have been using for work since it was new in 2014. It triple boots Windows, Linux and OSX, but I only really use Linux.
Mine has the same CPU, a i5-4308U but 16GB of memory, I think it was a custom order at the time.
If I recall I did the regular bootcamp process you would do to install Windows, installed Windows on a subset of the free space and Linux on the rest.
I've got Linux mint 21 on it currently, but I have had vanilla Ubuntu at different times. I can't think of anything on it that doesn't just work off hand.
Ubuntu worked out of the box for me on my mid 2015 Macbook Pro. Don't remember any specific drawbacks, but it does take a bit of getting used to the differences. Also dual booting is possible, if you want to consider having both systems on the same laptop, good if you need Facetime or something
I have a 2013 MacBook Air. No issues. I have open core legacy patcher on the Mac OS side to push me well past the cut off for the OS, but it's slow. The Ubuntu side works great still. Good battery life and the battery is still the original, I believe. I don't remember ever changing it out. Been meaning to switch to LMDE or something, but I had a number of false starts dual booting back when I did it and have been busy.
I have LDME on an 2012 Air and, oh boy, it is flawless. Works straight out of the box
You could use it for iMessage/other apple hardware locked apple software
The latest macOs likely does not support hardware that old any more.
I didn't realise that those apps only worked on the latest version of macOS.
Well, the older versions are unsupported, I for one wouldn't buy hardware just to run an unsupported OS version to run software that might break with any update on that OS version if the developers think they need some feature only available on later versions or will only support installation with some mechanism that changed over time.
I have a 2013 "air" that was updated to 10.15 (so 64bits) ; I bought it dirt cheap secondhand for one specific app, and out of the box it did update itself when I connected it not so long ago. I changed the battery, too - most resellers include the impossible screwdrivers needed to open the strange tri-lobe screws.
If OP has a use for it, it's not bad hardware with backlit keyboard, a decent screen, lightweight. With a new battery it's a decent all-day workhorse. My main machines are 5th gen Intel, and I remember nothing wrong with 4th gen.
Any distro will run on it, or should. I'd bet you'll get the spinning cube & wobbly windows easy peasy. If it's free, just try it out.
Have fun!
I didn't say they shouldn't buy it to run Linux on it, just that I wouldn't buy some old hardware just to run an already unsupported OS on it.
By 'the developers', do you mean Apple?
Debian on a base model 2013 MacBook air checking in. Runs better than it ever did on Mac OS. Battery life is still fine. I did have to use proprietary drivers for some things (wifi and webcam) but other than that it was pretty much plug and play.
Lots of replacement parts are on ebay for cheap, and there are a lot of repair tutorials on YouTube (and piped.video) I replaced keyboard and trackpad cheaply, and some of the internal cables.
As far as drawbacks, if you have to replace the storage or or logic board, those are expensive. I have a sound issue which I haven't been able to fix and from searching around it looks like a logic board would be required. Bluetooth headphones work fine though so I'm just dealing with it.
I installed Linux Mint last night on a 2011 Macbook Air. Unfortunately Debian (which was my first choice) was reproducibly crashing during downloading updates, during the installation. It also was not supporting the touchpad during installation, had to use a mouse (I'm sure it would work after installation though as it would use a newer kernel then). Mint worked without a hitch in all levels.
You should have tried LMDE. That is the best way to get Debian and also ease of install
I've tried LMDE in the past, it had the same bugs as Debian, as it's based on it.
Yeah but the current version is based on Bookworm. In other words a lot of drivers are included on it and it is really plug and play. I have I installed it on a 2012 Air and everything just worked out of the box
I have a 2010 running Mint LMDE, and it runs so much better than the Mac os x that it had did. The i5 is an Intel CPU, so it should be fully possible. Download a live image and boot from it. Test it out. If it works as expected, I stall. The 2010 has a screw off bottom, so I switched out the drive to preserve the original OS X, since the installation may not be available for much longer.
Edit: sorry I didn't answer the "Is there anything apple does better than linux that deserves I don’t nuke it?" question. I like to answer these types of posts as impartial as possible. Since I don't actually like Mac OS X's UI and UX, I didn't feel I could do that. I can only recommend that you as I did, and preserve the original drive if possible, so you can go back to Mac OS X if you want.
If it's free gift then yes, Linux will work but with a few compromises. Mainly driver support for Apple's proprietary hardware can be patchy out of the box and need manually fixing. Mainly peripherals like cameras (which may not work at all) and thunderbolt connectors (thunderbolt is supported but can need problem solving and may work better with different distros by default). The WiFi drivers are the classic issue - fixable but obviously painful to do offline.
But if you're paying beware those limitations.
The good thing is it's a Core i5 so you can use any AMD64 distribution and software (rather than the ARM distros needed for the proprietary apple chips; although on a quick search it seems those chips are now well supported by Linux distros).
Best approach may be to find a video/tutorial for your specific machine, and pick a distro they use. I imagine that'd be an Ubuntu derivative just due to shear popularity. But if you're then feeling adventurous you could try and get your preferred distro set up - just may need to know how to fix drivers.
I personally wouldn't stick with Mac OS - it's notorious for slowing down older systems as the focus is on the new. A 10 year old laptop will likely run better with a well set up Linux distro.
Running PopOS on a 2012 Macbook Air and Fedora on a 2015 Macbook Pro.
Potential common pitfall used to be having to add the Broadcom wifi drivers separately - I had to add them manually for PopOS but Fedora worked out of the box. Honestly PopOS + Wayland totally saved the old little Air and it’s a fantastic machine to use.
You may have to start using some free third-party tools for built-in features that work on the Mac.
I replaced iCloud keychain with BitWarden for password management. You can use Beeper for iMessage - it’s one of the few things to actually support it. iCloud Drive can be accessed via rclone I think but it might be terminal only - mind if you can get it to work via terminal then you can mount it as a folder. You can use Cider as an Apple Music client. I haven’t yet looked into Calendar and Contacts sync with iCloud but you can always export those and import in your software of choice on Linux.
Sean from Action Retro on YouTube has videos demonstrating how to set this up. Highly recommended!
Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian Edition installs very nicely on that machine and is one of the better working distros for apple hardware. It should auto detect the WiFi driver which is normally the pain point because it uses broadcom and the drivers are reverse engineered.
I don't think thunderbolt works, the SD card reader might not work and the video camera definitely won't work. Plus on standby the battery will drain flat.
These are the issues I had on my 2015 MacBook Pro before it died. I need to take it to apple for diagnosis but don't have the money right now.
However I run Linux Mint Debian Edition on a 2014 Mac Mini and it's ok
Generally Apple hardware is a pain with Linux. You get better results with pc hardware - better Harare compatibility and less issues
Others here with old Macs seem to have had a much smoother run than me!
You can absolutely run Linux like a champ on that machine, but for reasons I'm not advanced enough to know/understand I've struggled with even booting the live USB for multiple distros on my Mid-2012 15" Retina. Maybe it's the version of the hybrid Intel/Nvidia graphics on the model, I can't really say.
I'm currently writing this from Linux Mint on said Mac, and all is well; but I've experienced the following:
I totally recommend Linux Mint overall. I've decided I like Cinnamon best, "it just works" far more than anything else I've tried. I consider it the closest to macOS in terms of being thought about from every angle and set up and ready to go as a beginner or as a more advanced user.
Mint Cinnamon was very straightforward for (a not very technical) me on a 2016 MacBook Air v7! Dual boot was a tiny bit trickier, but it’s given an old machine a new lease of life. Highly recommend.
Yes, and with minor effort you can even make it look nearly identical to MacOS: https://github.com/vinceliuice/WhiteSur-gtk-theme
Can it be done? Yes. But compared to Mac OS it’s an awful experience. Thankfully the machine predates the massive trackpad and Touch Bar. But leave the Mac running Mac OS, it’s a far better experience than the half baked Linux support.
And who knows, maybe you’ll like it? It converted me.
Running an out of date MacOS is a way, way worse experience.
You can't update any browser
Laptop runs extremely slow
Installing software doesn't always work, you have to search the web for a compatbile version. Notable case is xcode.
Installing Arch Linux on my old laptop greatly enhanced the experience. Everything works great, laptop is at least 3x faster.
it’s a far better experience than the half baked Linux support.
What support are you going to get on a 2014 macbook? Zero support.
You can’t update any browser
The 2014 13" MBP can run (officially) Mac OS 11
Chrome for Mac requires Mac OS 10.15 and up
Firefox requires Mac OS 10.12 and up
Apple's software (like Xcode) are pretty much the only things that wont be updated.
So that's just not true.
Laptop runs extremely slow
Source on that? I have an even older 2012 MBP and the latest Mac OS feels just as fast as the very first version it can run.
Everything works great, laptop is at least 3x faster.
That you can easily tell is just 100% made up. Even on old machines Mac OS still runs great on them, it's one of the best things Apple does for those devices.
What support are you going to get on a 2014 macbook? Zero support.
Not getting updates but everything works flawlessly > god forbid Arch of all things.
I can 100% garuntee you the trackpad (the primary way of interacting with a laptop) will be nowhere near as good as in Mac OS.
As for the browser I'm going to assume it's my bad. My MBP no longer has browser updates and I incorrectly assumed it to be the case for the 2014 model as well. My bad.
Regarding the performance difference, it really is true. I thought my macbook was just filled with junk but even after (painfully) reinstalling everything it remained just as slow. Note that "everything" is basically a web development stack without a database, nothing too cluttered.
I used to get the spinning wheel all the time, never had it on any of the distros I've since installed on my MBP. Don't like Arch? No problem, there's plently of choice out there. Whatever distro you want will probably work fine. It's really fast but don't take my word, try it yourself.
"Works flawlessly" and "primary way of interacting" are limited to your use cases and experience. Not even allowing me to install xcode is not flawless, it's really dumb. The trackpad works good enough and I wouldn't trade, say, security updates for an improved version 🤷