What is best Linux distro for mid-2009 MBP?
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poiihy
macrumors 68020
What do you think, in terms of compatibility and perhaps performace, is the best Linux distro for a 15″ mid-2009 MBP? ubuntu 12 and 14 LTS don’t work on my MBP; only 10 LTS works but then Wi-Fi doesnt work and I cant update it because updater freezes. Anyone have any knowledge of this subject?
lowendlinux
macrumors 603
You need a kernel module to enable the WiFi on the Mac, I don’t think it’s packaged with any distro. If you want to run Linux on your Mac you’re going to need to do a bit of reading because WiFi is only gong to be the first of your problems. Why are you trying to run Linux on your Mac, what issue would a bare metal install fix that a virtualized one won’t?
throAU
macrumors G3
If you WANT linux, your best option is to probably stick 8 GB of RAM in it and then run the distribution of your choice in Virtualbox, Parallels or Fusion. All hardware compatibility problems are then solved.
I’m guessing you’re doing it to try and get better performance without spending anything on hardware though and I get it, but Linux is a pain in the rear for a lot of things and just giving OS X some more RAM will be a lot less painful.
As an example of how Linux still sucks for desktop use, connect to a NAS and try and play a video off it over WIFI. Linux will copy the file to your machine before playing it. As it has for the last 20 years. Windows and OS X can stream from network shares (and find them from within virtually any app for that matter), Linux still can’t, unless you map it via NFS, which has its own set of hassles.
kschendel
macrumors 65816
I had an earlier OpenSUSE (I forget the release) running on a mid-2009 MBP. As I recall, the main issues had to do with the nvidia graphics card; the nouveau driver was in pretty bad shape at the time. With more recent linux kernels there’s a good chance that nouveau will work, and if you need to you can get it up and running in dumb (VESA) framebuffer mode and then download / install the proprietary nvidia driver. You might try opensuse 13.2; I’d avoid Leap, as KDE Plasma 5 is a mess and absolutely not ready for prime-time, IMHO. My second choice suggestion would be Debian, as it tends to be a conservative distro and is likely to work well on your slightly older hardware. I can’t comment on the wifi support as I always ran the 2009 MBP hardwired.
I’ll second the suggestion to use Virtualbox (or one of the others, but vbox works and is free), unless you have some particular reason to run linux on the bare metal, or unless you’re badly memory deprived and can’t upgrade. I use VirtualBox to run opensuse 13.2 on the rMBP and it works well. (My Mac Pro dual-boots into OSX or Linux, but I do have reason to run on the bare metal in that case — I get paid for it.)
doynton
macrumors 6502
It isn’t clear if this guy is really a **** or just pretending to be.
Obviously 8GB is just a random number. You could stick your 8GB in your phone perhaps or up your arse. Whatever.
You can easily install Wi-Fi drivers. Just google it or (best case) look in the Arch wiki.
Arch is what I use (on my 2006 MBP) but any Linux will work. It isn’t difficult and you don’t need 8GB (of what I’ve no idea).
poiihy
macrumors 68020
Ok well what do you ppl think would have the most support and least tweaking needed? (you always need to tweak so no big deal). Just curious
kschendel
macrumors 65816
«Support» is a bit nebulous since unless you want to pay someone, it’s going to be forum level support. Ubuntu might possibly be at the head of that list, or Arch. Least tweaking? Very difficult to say.
throAU
macrumors G3
It isn’t clear if this guy is really a **** or just pretending to be.
Obviously 8GB is just a random number. You could stick your 8GB in your phone perhaps or up your arse. Whatever.
You can easily install Wi-Fi drivers. Just google it or (best case) look in the Arch wiki.
Arch is what I use (on my 2006 MBP) but any Linux will work. It isn’t difficult and you don’t need 8GB (of what I’ve no idea).
It’s not an arbitrary number. It’s a requirement to do reasonable virtualisation under OS X with a spinning hard disk. Which is the easiest way to get up and running without needing to mess with drivers other than install VM tools which can even be automatically done depending on the distribution and VM host software used. You also get snapshots to recover from if you screw something up.
No, you don’t need 8 GB for linux on bare metal. But it is cheap and trying to run VMs on a machine with 4 GB and a spinning hard drive in it sucks. And if the only reason you want linux is because it runs faster on your old hardware, just get the same thing with 8 GB in your OS X install and have something that actually works in a typical home network much better. It wasn’t a random number at all.
And whatever variant of Linux you use, virtualisation or physical install, it will still have problems actually doing basic things like streaming content from network shares via CIFS or appletalk (KDE / Gnome apps almost all want to copy the whole file to your local machine first before playing or working on it — which is just garbage when you’re say, watching a movie over WIFI and have to wait for it to copy first — yes you can solve that to an extent by mounting the share via the command line so linux thinks it is a local file system, but there’s a bunch of other caveats on that and it’s not intuitive at all). You’ll also have to give up virtually all of your OS X apps.
Never mind the inconvenience of things like kernel or OS upgrades breaking your WIFI that you set up via WIKI somewhere because it was compiled against a previous version of the kernel to the one you just updated to.
Now speaking of just being a ****.
Fancuku
macrumors 65816
I too recommend running Linux on VirtualBox. No need to run older versions of Ubuntu when the latest are much better. Ubuntu 15.10, Mint 17.3, Zorin, etc. Lots of choices.
I was triple booting my MBP but I stopped doing that and I now I use Virtualbox for those few times that I need Linux and Windows on my machine.
throAU
macrumors G3
Maybe consider PC-BSD (check compatibility or just install in VM).
Because it’s FreeBSD based and a lot of the command line tools on BSD and OS X are actually built from the same code, the text output is the same, the command line arguments are the same, etc.
If you learn BSD command line, a lot of it will translate to OS X and vice versa.
Linux tools are all GNU and things are. a lot more different at the command line.
PC-BSD 10.2 is a bit slow until you update it though — not sure why but I installed it on bare metal on my Windows box the other day and disk IO was bad until I patched it up to date.
All the same network file sharing caveats I mention above still apply though.
lowendlinux
macrumors 603
It’s not an arbitrary number. It’s a requirement to do reasonable virtualisation under OS X with a spinning hard disk. Which is the easiest way to get up and running without needing to mess with drivers other than install VM tools which can even be automatically done depending on the distribution and VM host software used. You also get snapshots to recover from if you screw something up.
No, you don’t need 8 GB for linux on bare metal. But it is cheap and trying to run VMs on a machine with 4 GB and a spinning hard drive in it sucks. And if the only reason you want linux is because it runs faster on your old hardware, just get the same thing with 8 GB in your OS X install and have something that actually works in a typical home network much better. It wasn’t a random number at all.
And whatever variant of Linux you use, virtualisation or physical install, it will still have problems actually doing basic things like streaming content from network shares via CIFS or appletalk (KDE / Gnome apps almost all want to copy the whole file to your local machine first before playing or working on it — which is just garbage when you’re say, watching a movie over WIFI and have to wait for it to copy first — yes you can solve that to an extent by mounting the share via the command line so linux thinks it is a local file system, but there’s a bunch of other caveats on that and it’s not intuitive at all). You’ll also have to give up virtually all of your OS X apps.
Never mind the inconvenience of things like kernel or OS upgrades breaking your WIFI that you set up via WIKI somewhere because it was compiled against a previous version of the kernel to the one you just updated to.
Now speaking of just being a ****.
He’s a typical Arch Linux user on social media it really wasn’t worth responding to. The kernel module will rebuild no matter the kernel that is underneath it the era of breakages for common stuff like that is over. Where he will have problems though will be keyboard, keyboard backlighting, backlight control, and trackpad. He’ll eventually get it all running but it’s not going to be quick, clean, nor easy.
Installing Linux on a MacBook Air
It’s not a clean victory, but I got Linux onto my MacBook Air.
When I first got my Air, I launched the Ubuntu install disk and followed the instructions on the Ubuntu wiki. Unfortunately, these instructions are apparently for the MacBook Air 1,1, and I had a MacBook Air 2,1. The Linux kernel froze in the middle of initializing.
After a couple, ahem, weeks of playing around with kernel parameters, I got it to a point where I realized it was Ubuntu, not Linux, that was screwing up, so I decided to try some other distro. I got a Debian network install CD (the full install is 31 CDs!) and tried it. It booted into the installer fine, and started merrily installing the system. I suddenly realized I had a doctor’s appointment, and had a terrible premonition that, by the time I got back, something would have gone wrong.
My premonition was correct. When I returned, the CD had stopped working. I checked it for errors, and it was fine. However, every time I started the computer now, the CD driver would make an ominous clicking noise and pop open. If I held it closed, it would make a downright alarming snapping noise. And reFit couldn’t even recognize it.
So, I installed VMWare Fusion on the Mac partition, and installed Linux on that. I’m trying to look on the bright side: I get OS X power management, wireless, and sound with a Linux environment.
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4 thoughts on “ Installing Linux on a MacBook Air ”
yes that’s basically what came to my mind while I attempted to install Debian on my macbookair : ” Let’s virtualize it” because install from scratch or double-trible-boot-refit stuff are harldy a simple solution
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And just seeing the post date now. love the internet even 4 years late. Like Like