Now most of the Intel Macs are no longer supported by the latest MacOS releases, they seem like a great candidate for a migration to Linux. I haven't seen much about that recently on this forum. If people are doing it, what Linux distro works best and what problems are typically encountered. Also with an unsupported Mac is there any reason not to go all in on Linux and completely wipe MacOS from the SSD?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Linux on older Intel Macs without T2
- Thread starter ADGrant
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Linux is a great choice for older Intel Macs. Popular distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, or Linux Mint usually work well, but you might face issues with Wi-Fi drivers, trackpads, or power management.
Not having working wifi is quite inconvenient when installing on a Retina MacBook Pro. I found that if you check the proprietary code checkbox on the Ubuntu Installer wizard, it will install a working wifi driver (which is proprietary of course). One issue had was video driver support for the discrete NVidia GPU. The current versions of the NVidia driver do not support GPUs that old and the open source driver does not support Vulkan.
I did decide to completely wipe MacOS from the system, I couldn't see a reason to keep it.
I did decide to completely wipe MacOS from the system, I couldn't see a reason to keep it.
Well, the old SSD I installed many years ago failed so I put in a new SSD and decided to put Linux on it since Apple doesn't support that old Mac anymore.
I think High Sierra is the last supported OS but for the life of me I couldn't get it to download. It just hung for over a day of trying. So Linux was the answer. It installed on the first try and with no problems.
So I did it - installed Ubuntu 24.04 on my early 2016 Retina MacBook. I did a complete wipe of the drive and installed Ubuntu solely on the system, no dual boot. I havent tested out Bluetooth yet, but I had no issues connecting to my wireless network, and the system is chugging along nicely. The battery life even seems improved over what Monterey was giving. Only downside I've noticed is after the machine goes to sleep it wont accept my password for signing in, and I need to hard shut down. This isnt a machine I actually plan on doing anything with, but I was bored
Last edited:
Looks great. Ubuntu takes a while to wake up from sleep on my 2014 MBP but otherwise works great. BTW I switched the Gnome desktop to smart mode and moved the dock to the bottom of the screen and changed it to not extend to the screen edge like the MacOS doc.
I'm going to do some tinkering with it over the weekend. I did check sound and microphone and I'm not getting anything from either.
Sound works for me, haven't checked the mic but it is not a feature I need on Linux.
Yeah, I'm not really too concerned with no sound or mic, just something I noticed. Other than that, the system is running quite smoothly.
One problem I have just discovered, the internal SD card reader does not work which is quite disappointing.
I have three 2011 Macs, an iMac, and two MacBook Pros, all of which share the same problem with Arch Linux. When I put in the install USB and press enter on Install Arch Linux, I get a black screen. The only way I found around it was to install it on another MacBook SSD and swap it in after the installation.
There's been a lot of active talk about Linux on the Early Intel Mac forums. Mint seems to be the flavour of choice, but MX Linux is also really popular.
I've daily driven Zorin OS on a 2008 MacBook with SSD and RAM upgrades as a full Mac OS replacement, and if you're not afraid of delving into the command line to do things, and you don't care about running legacy Mac apps, it's a fantastic choice. The only caveats are that on the A1181, the iSight camera won't work out of the box (you need to install special firmware via command line) and you may need to plug your Mac into Ethernet in case the Linux installer needs to connect to the Internet to install WiFi drivers/firmware. I can't comment on other Early Intel Mac models, but I suspect there would be similar issues.
On Core Duo-based Early Intel Macs, Linux is breath of fresh air, as it grants access to more modern web browsers and up-to-date 32-bit apps on OS X are becoming increasingly rare.
I've used mainly 2011 Macs, various models, and various flavours of Linux. They have all done very well on MX Linux. There have been very few problems and it mostly just works.
Ive recently received a 2007 Macbook Pro 17, and that doesn't like Linux at all, no idea why yet. The white A1181 models do well, but keep an Ethernet connection handy. The later varieties of that machine, 2009, mainly just work with MX. For the older Core Duo machines, MX has a 32-bit version.
Ive recently received a 2007 Macbook Pro 17, and that doesn't like Linux at all, no idea why yet. The white A1181 models do well, but keep an Ethernet connection handy. The later varieties of that machine, 2009, mainly just work with MX. For the older Core Duo machines, MX has a 32-bit version.
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro 13 inch that was running OpenCore Legacy Patcher and macOS Monterey. I saw no point to continue with it since I have newer Macs, and this old Mac was sitting doing nothing. I have never tried Linux myself and saw how people online said it was a way to bring an old Mac back to life.
I also saw that people have created Asahi Linux to bring Linux to Apple Silicon and they run Fedora. Thus I figured maybe that's the Linux distro I should start with, since that may be the future of my current M3 MacBook Air. I Googled and found this article and it made things clear:
Installing Fedora 41 on Macbook Pro 13 inch (late 2011)
January 6, 2025
www.schabell.org
This was exactly what I was looking for. I had several partitions on my Mac SSD drive from other OS experiments, and I decided to wipe the entire drive and make it a pure Linux machine when I did this a few days ago.
I used a USB-A keyboard and mouse, and also needed an ethernet cable to connect the Mac to my router so I can get internet and download drivers, including the Broadcom Wifi driver.
Since I'm not familiar with Linux or using the command line, so the part with setting up "a new root user password with 'sudu passwd root' " threw me off for a bit until I managed to get it working. Now wifi, bluetooth, and sound all works under Fedora 41 workstation.
Separately, I managed to get Windows 11 Pro installed on my 2020 Intel Touch Bar MBP. That was more tricky and it took me a while to find a Youtube video with a solution that worked for me. Then I had to manually get some of the Apple drivers working in Win 11 Pro. Now everything works.
I also saw that people have created Asahi Linux to bring Linux to Apple Silicon and they run Fedora. Thus I figured maybe that's the Linux distro I should start with, since that may be the future of my current M3 MacBook Air. I Googled and found this article and it made things clear:
Installing Fedora 41 on Macbook Pro 13 inch (late 2011)
January 6, 2025
Installing Fedora 41 on Macbook Pro 13 inch (late 2011)
Installing Fedora 41 on Macbook Pro 13 inch (late 2011)
This was exactly what I was looking for. I had several partitions on my Mac SSD drive from other OS experiments, and I decided to wipe the entire drive and make it a pure Linux machine when I did this a few days ago.
I used a USB-A keyboard and mouse, and also needed an ethernet cable to connect the Mac to my router so I can get internet and download drivers, including the Broadcom Wifi driver.
Since I'm not familiar with Linux or using the command line, so the part with setting up "a new root user password with 'sudu passwd root' " threw me off for a bit until I managed to get it working. Now wifi, bluetooth, and sound all works under Fedora 41 workstation.
Separately, I managed to get Windows 11 Pro installed on my 2020 Intel Touch Bar MBP. That was more tricky and it took me a while to find a Youtube video with a solution that worked for me. Then I had to manually get some of the Apple drivers working in Win 11 Pro. Now everything works.
Last edited:
Good to see you've got the 2011 working. Surprised you needed the mouse and keyboard, though, or even the Ethernet. Not a fan of Fedora myself, preferring MX or Mint, both of which work out of the box on a lot of old Macs.