MBA 1,1-6,2 Second Life for 2013 11"/13" MBA with Multiboot (native macOS / OCLP / Ubuntu)

[bobesch]

Here's how it all started: as an alternative to my current Windows-based bread&butter software,
there's a software solution, that supports it's client-software to run on macOS, Windows or even Ubuntu-Linux.
Currently I have a bunch of mid2012 15" MacBookPro as Win10Pro clients running at my office.

So I gave Ubuntu (and also other Linux-Distros) a try on a spare 2013 13" i7 MBA6,2 8/500GB
(the second fastest of the non-retina MBA-line, which I got for 130 bucks).
The project was heavily inspirated and supported by a fellow forum member @Klausern on the MacUser.de Forum,
who tested a lot of Linux-Distros on his 13" MBA6,2 and kindly shared his experience.

Previously to my Linux trials my 13" MBA had served as a device for testing OCLP/macOS.
Harddrive had been configured as a single APFS-container holding volumes for native-Mojave(32bit), OCLP/Ventura, OCLP/Sequoia and shared personal data.
OCLP/Ventura proved to be stable enough to be the base operating-system on that machine
and offered a stable Backup/Restore-Routine using CCC for scheduled Backups in combination with MigrationsAssistant for Restore.

In the past I was always reluctant to install/add Linux to any macOS or Windows environment, because I feared Linux might cause mayhem to the booting-partition.

On the 13"MBA with 500GB NVMe-SSD I started with DiskUtility to reduce the APFS-Container to a size of 300GB (housing volumes for Mojave, OCLP/Ventura and OCLP/Sequoia.)
My most important/critical measure to avoid redundancy or running out of space on Dual/MultiBoot-Systems
was to add that new volume for personal data ("MyData"), which holds all personal files, that are not (i)Cloud- or otherwise synchronized or that do depend on data stored in user/library.

Then I added four 50GB containers to install different Linux-versions/Ubuntu-flavors.
As I was expecting: the installation of the first Linux-Distro (which one doesn't matter) already caused trouble in the BootPartition or whatever you call it ...
I can't exactly recall the details but ( with a Munchhausen-trick) in the end I could install "rEFInd" boot-manager through the Linux-Live-Boot-USB-Stick and got everything in shape.

With rEFInd in place the booting cascade is now:
(1) AppleBootScreen >> (2) OCLP-BootScreen >> (3) rEFInd

(1)Apple- BootScreen: boot Mojave (I encountered problems with the mail.app, whenever Mojave was launched through the OCLP-BootPicker)
(2) OCLP-BootScreen: boot rEFInd or boot any OCLP/macOS-SystemVolume
(3) rEFInd-BootScreen: boot any Linux-Partition or any OCLP/maco-SystemVolume (or even Mojave)

So after this muddle of partitioning and booting had been sorted out,
the real fun with Multiboot macOS/OCLP-macOS/Linux was about to begin.

next Topics:
- Linux-Distros and hardware-support for the 13"MBA (battery-life, tricky FacetimeHD-Cam etc.)
- macOS vs. Linux: how to find&run substitutes for my current macOS-workflow

A short spoiler:
I nearly spent a week mainly on the MBA/Ubuntu 24.04 LTE covering more than 90 percent of my daily tasks/routines,
but also having a Windows-Server/Network/ and my local MacBooks available through VPN, FileSharing and ScreenSharing/RDP.
and making the MBA/Ubuntu a great companion.
After having added the FlatPack/FlatHub-Store in addition to Ubuntu/Debian 's Snap-based Apps
there's a plethora of apps at hands to deal with all kind of tasks I've never ever previously thought about.

On the other hand, there are some mission-critical routines / apps I'm missing:
an easy-to-work-with substitute for DEVONthink, appropriate support for my ScanSnap-Scanners, a backup-solution with scheduled backup-plans like CCC.
Maybe I just haven't dug deep enough into Linux yet.

 

[MBAir2010]

Unbuntu is tough on early intel macs as both of mine MBA 210 MBP2012 ran both several times for a couple of days, then crashed completely.

I would type more but that is all i can add to this wonderful post!

 

[bobesch]

After trials with several distros, Ubuntu 24.04 LTE (as flavors) was the only one to support the FacetimeHD-Cam on the 2013 MBA.
My favorite Distro actually is LMDE6, but the FacetimeHD-Cam doesn't work.
LinuxMint performed well on my 2008/9 15" c2duo MBP with iSight-Cam. So maybe, that's would be also a choice for a 2010 MBA,
but I don't know, if the Facetime-Cam of the 2010 MBA is supported.
Which version of Ubuntu did you try? With 24.04LTE there are better ways to save energy and reduce animations, compared to older versions, but one could use tweaks to reduce animation on older Ubuntu-versions too.
Unfortunatly with Ubuntu it's the same problem like with most other operating systems: progress goes hand in hand with bloatware and eye-candy, that renders old hardware obsolete.

 

[bobesch]

Short update:
to install the FaceTimeHD Cam drivers on Ubuntu 24.04 LTE and LinuxMate22.2 just follow the steps of this tutorial:

facetimehd - Kernel driver for FacetimeHD camera : Greg Whiteley

This code is a packaged version of the driver from here: https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd This applies to MacBooks from the mid 2010s, with this device or similar: 04:00.0 Multimedia controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries 720p FaceTime HD Camera If you have any issues with...

launchpad.net

Basically these 4 steps are required to be run in the terminal.app:
1. update apt: sudo apt update
2. add ppa-repository: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:greg-whiteley/facetimehd
3. update apt (like in step 1): sudo apt update
4. install the drivers: sudo apt install facetimehd-dkms facetimehd-firmware
Reboot

 

[bobesch]

Update on my Ubuntu24.04LTE testdrive on 2013 13"MBA6,2 (8/500):
The Multiboot-Project with APFS-Container (3 Volumes: Mojave; OCLP/Ventura; OCLP/Sequioa) and a few small separate .ext4-Partitions (primarily created as separate FAT32-Containers with DiskUtility/macOS) unfortunately failed!
After installing LMDE7 for a testdrive, the APFS-Container happend to be ghosted: no more option to boot into any of the 3 macOS-Volumes, no possibility to mount the macOS-Volumes neither in TDM nor via DiskUtility from any macOS-Installer-BootStick.
rEFInd-function also became somehow funny, but unfortunately I cannot recall the details.

I was able to erase the APFS-Container and could have tried to rebuild the APFS-Container/2-3Volumes /w macOS configuration),
but I decided to run the MBA with an only Ubuntu24.04LTE configuration (GUID/.ext4).
Later I separated the SSD into 3 ext4-partitions of equal size and initially used the two empty partitions successfully for backup/restore-trials with 'qtfsarchiver' (like CCC) and 'timeshift'(or like TM); then later on partition was used for another LMDE7 testdrive and dual boot was succesfully established and configurated with grub boot-manager, so I don't need rEFInd so far).

Collecting all the snippets of information of my previous Linux/Ubuntu testdrives with 'Obsidian' was of great help to reinstall Ubuntu24.04LTE onto the MBA and here's my current routine to make things work on the MBA6,2:
- activate Broadcom WLAN/BT driver
- install and activate FaceTimeHD-Cam driver
- activate QuickLook with Gnome-Sushi
- install FlatPakHub and optionally replace Snap with FlatPak-versions
- add additional browsers (Chromium, Chrome)
- add Obsidian.App
- add VirtualBox Download for Win2000Pro/WinXPPro/Win7Pro-VMs
(important: unload KVM through 'Terminal' in order to get VirtualBox working: sudo modprobe -r kvm_intel kvm )
- configure VPN-connection
(install Cisco IPsec Protokoll via sudo apt install network-manager-vpnc network-manager-vpnc-gnome)
- configure Remmina.App für RDP/VNC -connections
- configure Backup with 'fsarchiver' / 'qtfsarchiver' (works similar to CCC or SuperDuper!)
- install "Brasero'.App to create .ISO-Files from CD/DVD (e.g. for use with VirtualBox)
- install and configure Apps for communication via text/audio/video: WhatsApp, Signal, Teams, Zoom, Discord etc. (video/audio/text)
- FileSharing, webDAV-access work out of the box.
- 'Thunderbird' is configurated for Mail/Calendar/Contact-Sync. ('Evolution' is on my list for a try-out).
- for the whole iCloud-environment I currently use the browser-based access (same should be possible for the Google-environment)
- in progress: add scanning/OCR: OCRmyPDF, GImageReader, Tesseract

So far now I've spent nearly 3 weeks on heavily using the MBA/Ubuntu for browsing, video-streaming, remote-access to my macOS-machines (VNC, home-network) or Windows-network at the office (remote via VPN/RDP).
Establishing the VPN/RDP-connection seems to me by far the fastest way compared to macOS- or Win-routines and it makes the MBA/Ubuntu an excerptional hub for remote working.
Still a "fun-machine", since I rely heavily on macOS (home-office, paperless-office, batch-scanning/OCR, DEVONthink, sync with iOS) and on my Windows-Network in the Office, but it's becoming real alternative.
Actually this experience made me order a Jolla-phone made by a Finnish start-up company (spin-off of the MeeGo-developer-team, that was dismissed after Microsoft acquired Nokia).
It's but a start - after all it doesn't make sense to put all the eggs in a single nest.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

Thanks for this info! I’m interested in trying this also.

😄

 

[bobesch]

Thanks for this info! I’m interested in trying this also.

Good luck and stay in touch if you need help! (Alas, I'm still a novice, when it comes to Linux ... )