My grandma just gave me her old MacBook Pro (MacBookPro11,1 A1502) and, after removing a spicy pillow, air dusting everything, and copying off her old photos, I’m ready to do a clean install.

I would like to dual-boot either Linux or BSD (which will be my main partition) alongside macOS (which will be handy for testing and for use with certain peripherals; either Mavericks, High Sierra, or Big Sur).

I am already well-versed in unix-like operating systems, so I’ll only start having trouble if I try to use a source-based distro (e.g. Gentoo, Source Mage, LFS, etc.)

Can I have some recommendations for the Linux and the macOS version, please?

  • danielfgom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    7 months ago

    I run Linux Mint Debian Edition on my 2014 Mac Mini and it’s works really well. Should be the same on the MacBook. Or regular Mint.

    I’ve run Mint on my 2015 MacBook Pro and it worked very well.

    Either way I recommend a slow release distro because if you use a rolling distro the WiFi will stop working with every kernel update … It takes a few days before they update the Broadcom reverse driver to work with the newer kernel.

    That’s why I’m on Linux Mint Debian Edition - I don’t need the latest kernel nor my WiFi breaking every other week. Linux Mint Debian Edition is stable and just works.

  • burgersc12@mander.xyz
    4·
    7 months ago

    I liked Debian, but really you can’t go wrong with most Linux distros, just find one that suits your needs. Mint was another one that worked well on my MacBook

  • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
    3·
    7 months ago

    I put LMDE on my 2010, and it runs smooth as butter. Fedora Silverblue, as some one else stated, will give you the ability to run Linux as your main and have Macos in a drawer without the need to dual boot. If I needed Macos on mine, I would have gone this route, too.

    Edit: personally, I prefer official images, so I would have installed the official Silverblue and not the community edition from uBlue, but whatever floats your boat.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    2·
    7 months ago

    Fedora Silverblue from ublue.it to get a macOS like workflow but better. Why dualboot if you can create a macos install medium and store that in a drawer?

  • thejevans@lemmy.ml
    2·
    7 months ago

    I loaded NixOS on a 2014 macbook air, copying over my config from my framework laptop (just switching the hardware config), and it just works. I think pretty much any modern linux distro will work fine.

  • Tio@social.trom.tf
    1·
    7 months ago

    We tested our TROMjaro on several macbooks from 2013-2014 so we’ve installed some drivers for the wifi card and such. www.tromjaro.com

    TROMjaro is very easy to use and we even have a Layout Switcher to make it look like MAcOS if you so like it. See the homepage where we explain it in detail.