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Linux on older Intel Macs without T2

Just installed MX 25 Beta 1 on this late 2011 13" Macbook Pro with SSD and 12GB RAM. Runs really well, no issues so far.
DCBassman said:
No, no hangover. It just doesn't work properly on this machine. Time to try a selection of other distros for this one.
Click to expand...
That was MX 23.6 on an A1229 17" MBP. Works just fine with the new version 25, backgrounds and all.
 
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More on MX 25 Beta 1:
One of the great things about MX 23 was that it would boot and install on a great variety of machines, including all my Intel Macs. One or two required some initial fiddling with 'nomodeset', but that was it. I was particularly pleased that it just worked on the 2011 15" MBPs with disabled dGPUs. 25 will not even get to the GRUB screen. Yet.
 
I experimented with linux on my "new" 2011 11inch air (i5, 4gb ram, 256gb ssd) and didn't have a lot of success. MX, Lubuntu, Solus, and linux lite all froze when I tried to launch firefox during live boot.
MX also froze when I tried to install it to ssd.
I only had luck with Salient os, a nice arch based distro that I soon discovered stopped being actively supported in May.
I might try some other distros, but am quite pleased with Mavericks on this machine and may leave it at that.
 
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Snowlover said:
I experimented with linux on my "new" 2011 11inch air (i5, 4gb ram, 256gb ssd) and didn't have a lot of success. MX, Lubuntu, Solus, and linux lite all froze when I tried to launch firefox during live boot.
MX also froze when I tried to install it to ssd.
I only had luck with Salient os, a nice arch based distro that I soon discovered stopped being actively supported in May.
I might try some other distros, but am quite pleased with Mavericks on this machine and may leave it at that.
Click to expand...
Strange, my 2011 11" lapped up MX, and runs it well.
 
This is the first machine I have had this problem with, I don't understand what is happening. No problem running Mavericks or High sierra.
 
Just updated to Ubuntu 25.10 on the MacBook. I never did get audio working, but the problem I had with the sign in screen not accepting a password after going to sleep is no longer an issue.

# System Details Report
---

## Report details
- **Date generated:** 2025-11-07 09:17:47

## Hardware Information:
- **Hardware Model:** Apple Inc. MacBook9,1
- **Memory:** 8.0 GiB
- **Processor:** Intel® Core™ m7-6Y75 × 4
- **Graphics:** Intel® HD Graphics 515 (SKL GT2)
- **Disk Capacity:** 500.3 GB

## Software Information:
- **Firmware Version:** 529.120.1.0.0
- **OS Name:** Ubuntu 25.10
- **OS Build:** (null)
- **OS Type:** 64-bit
- **GNOME Version:** 49
- **Windowing System:** Wayland
- **Kernel Version:** Linux 6.17.0-6-generic
 
Tried BigLinux on my 2011 air, actually got it installed dual booting with Mavericks.
Had problems with connecting to wifi hotspot till I realized I had to switch it to wpa2 password. Everything worked fine untill I got the wifi working (was fine tethered with usb). As soon as wifi connected, the system froze, no way to do anything but shut down. 😕
I wonder if Salient os worked because it was using an older lts kernel?
 
It seems later linux kernels (past 6) have an issue with the proper drivers for my broadcom wireless, causing system freezes. There is alot of posts about it on the internet, but not a lot of clarity as to which driver to switch to.
I decided to go with linux mint 21.3, mate de, as it still uses the 5.15 Lts kernel and is supported thru April 2027. I`m not real excited about using mint, never really liked it, but it works and I just want it alongside Mavericks for online banking on this device if necessary while traveling.

Edit: after using mint for a few days I find that I actually do like it. Very solid and easy to use, quite beginner friendly, everything just works. All I had to do is type "fan" into the software center and it gave me an linux approximation of macsfancontrol to easily install. On others, if I didn't get the exact name right, nothing would show up.
 
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Snowlover said:
Tried BigLinux on my 2011 air, actually got it installed dual booting with Mavericks.
Had problems with connecting to wifi hotspot till I realized I had to switch it to wpa2 password. Everything worked fine untill I got the wifi working (was fine tethered with usb). As soon as wifi connected, the system froze, no way to do anything but shut down. 😕
Click to expand...
I have a BigLinux external SATA SSD that I swear will boot just about every damned thing I connect it to, PC or Mac, and the WiFi works. (I have not tried a MBA'11 recently, so that model might be a corner case. Generally, though, if installed with proprietary drivers option, it should be able to handle anything -- which makes it a rarity among Linux distros.)
 
Minghold said:
Below is visual proof that not only will a full-featured GUI Linux run on a 15yo Mac, it will do so as a VM inside a host MacOS. Pictured: 2009 21.5" iMac, 4gb ram, with High Sierra (partially debloated by disabling MRT, MDS_Stores, ReportCrash, and Spotlight-indexing) spinning at 5400rpm. AntiX Linux is using less than 200mb of a total 1.5gb granted by the VM (whose shell is using another 140mb or so, for about ~335mb total uncompressed. I could actually have Photoshop CS6 running without triggering swap (unless I opened something really huge).

What to do next? Spend money on new ram and tear the case open to put in an SSD? No. I'll keep carving away Apple's bloat, namely all the underhood garbage between Snow Leopard and High Sierra that has the latter gobbling an extra gig of ram at rest for the privilege of being one quarter as snappy. Next step is to see if the same VM (created in Parallels 18 on a Mojave machine) will still open in progressively older versions of Parallels such as would run in, say, MacOS Lion. This would free up a lot of ram for use by a "modern" browser in the hosted Linux.


View attachment 2551035
Click to expand...
Dude I love this. Old hardware is very capable.
 
Minghold said:
I have a BigLinux external SATA SSD that I swear will boot just about every damned thing I connect it to, PC or Mac, and the WiFi works. (I have not tried a MBA'11 recently, so that model might be a corner case. Generally, though, if installed with proprietary drivers option, it should be able to handle anything -- which makes it a rarity among Linux distros.)
Click to expand...
Re installed biglinux with proprietary drivers, same freezing when connect wifi. Downloaded kernels 6.1 and 5.15, tried both. Freeze happens with 6.1 but not 5.15, as I found with mint 21.3. So I guess I can't go beyond 5.15 with this machine?
 
Snowlover said:
Re installed biglinux with proprietary drivers, same freezing when connect wifi. Downloaded kernels 6.1 and 5.15, tried both. Freeze happens with 6.1 but not 5.15, as I found with mint 21.3. So I guess I can't go beyond 5.15 with this machine?
Click to expand...
I've never had a freeze loading a wifi driver, with any version of linux. Normally you just won't see any network choices when without the correct drivers. (It makes me wonder if something is flakey with the machine.)
 
Yes, I wondered that too, but ram & ssd checked out fine. No problems with Mavericks, or High Sierra, and works fine with 5.15 lts kernel.
Like I said earlier there are many posts online about freezes with later kernels on older machines (not just macs) with broadcom wireless modules.
 
Snowlover said:
Yes, I wondered that too, but ram & ssd checked out fine. No problems with Mavericks, or High Sierra, and works fine with 5.15 lts kernel.
Like I said earlier there are many posts online about freezes with later kernels on older machines (not just macs) with broadcom wireless modules.
Click to expand...
Which Broadcom device is it, and which driver are you using? The output of

sudo lshw -C network

would be useful.

If you're using the wl driver, did you try using the ibt=off kernel parameter?

The Arch wiki has a good page on Broadcom wireless.
 
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Paddy OPlastic said:
Which Broadcom device is it, and which driver are you using? The output of

sudo lshw -C network

would be useful.

If you're using the wl driver, did you try using the ibt=off kernel parameter?

The Arch wiki has a good page on Broadcom wireless.
Click to expand...
sudo: lshw: command not found
but
lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4353] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme [106b:00e9]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at a0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: bcma, wl

Can you explain how to use the ibt=off kernel parameter, and or how to switch to a different broadcom driver that will work better. I did read the arch wiki, but I kind of need it explained to me as if I were a second grader.
Edit, reading more, it seems that brcmsmac is the appropriate driver ?
Also, will using ibt=off cause security issues?

Thanks, and thanks for the link.

broadcom-wl​

WarningMay result in Kernel Oops and system instability on Linux 5.18 (or later) on systems 11th Gen and newer due to an incompatibility with Indirect Branch Tracking. You can disable it by setting the ibt=off kernel parameter from the boot loader. Be aware, this security feature is responsible for mitigating a class of exploit techniques.
 
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I did that on my iMac 2011. I tried both Mint & Debian, and both worked very well. I even have a Sata SSD instead of the stock HDD that came with it.
 
Snowlover said:
sudo: lshw: command not found
but
lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4353] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme [106b:00e9]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at a0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: bcma, wl

Can you explain how to use the ibt=off kernel parameter, and or how to switch to a different broadcom driver that will work better. I did read the arch wiki, but I kind of need it explained to me as if I were a second grader.
Edit, reading more, it seems that brcmsmac is the appropriate driver ?
Also, will using ibt=off cause security issues?

Thanks, and thanks for the link.

broadcom-wl​

WarningMay result in Kernel Oops and system instability on Linux 5.18 (or later) on systems 11th Gen and newer due to an incompatibility with Indirect Branch Tracking. You can disable it by setting the ibt=off kernel parameter from the boot loader. Be aware, this security feature is responsible for mitigating a class of exploit techniques.
Click to expand...
The ibt=off shouldn't cause extra security issues on your processor - I think it's too old to be affected by the vulnerability IBT is supposed to mitigate (although I could be wrong). In fact I'm surprised the mitigation would be enabled in the first place for your processor, thus causing the issue with the Broadcom driver. Let's try it first anyway.

I don't know Biglinux/Manjero/Arch but I'm guessing it's using grub so the easiest way to add the kernel parameter is to edit the command line in the grub configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, add ibt=off to the end within the single quotes and save. The line should look similar to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='quiet splash resume=UUID=b4387b37-edb3-4d51-a709-6dcbedc6a4b0 ibt=off'

Then do:

sudo grub-install

Then reboot and hopefully the driver should no longer cause the kernel panic on boot.

If you want to try the other driver then reverse the IBT edit above and rerun grub-install. Then you need to blacklist the wl driver you're currently using. According to that Arch document the brcmsmac module should be in the kernel so blacklisting the wl driver should load the brsm module instead.

Create a new file in /etc/modprobe.d

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-broadcom-wl.conf

Just add the line

blacklist wl

and save. You might want to check that the brsm module hasn't been blacklisted by your distribution for some reason:

grep brsm /etc/modprobe.d/*

If it has been blacklisted then edit the file so that line begins with #.

Then reboot and hopefully the open-source driver will work.
 
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Thank you for your reply Paddy.
So the first thing i decided to try was deleting the wl driver, and yes, other driver is in kernel.
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: bcma
Still got the freeze on kernel later than 5.15, (tried 6.12 work for 2 minutes, and 6.19 immediate freeze) so maybe problem not the wl driver?
Will try ibt=off and see if that helps.
 
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Snowlover said:
Thank you for your reply Paddy.
So the first thing i decided to try was deleting the wl driver, and yes, other driver is in kernel.
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: bcma
Still got the freeze on kernel later than 5.15, (tried 6.12 work for 2 minutes, and 6.19 immediate freeze) so maybe problem not the wl driver?
Will try ibt=off and see if that helps.
Click to expand...
Hmm, you certainly shouldn't be using bcma-pci-bridge as a driver for this device. You could try blacklisting it to see if the kernel finds the right driver. I have an iMac which uses the wl driver for Wi-Fi and I'll try to make it work with the open-source drivers tomorrow.
 
"sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, add ibt=off to the end within the single quotes and save. "
This gives a really long string that doesn't really look like your example.

I added ibt=off to the end, but How do I save it?

I tried kernel 6.12 again and it hasn't crashed yet.
 
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Right after posting the above, system froze on kernel 6.12.
Tried wl driver again and got freeze on 6.12.
Checked to be sure and ibt=off was saved in grub.

Thanks for all the help, but at this point I think I will just stick with kernel 5.15 till support ends, and then get a usb wifi dongle.
 
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