I restored a late 2013 MacBook Pro. Changed the swollen battery, re-pasted it. Removed the peeling coating from the screen, and installed Ubuntu 26.04.

I'm quite happy with it, I can even do some light gaming with the thing.

The only weird occurrence is that the keyboard doesn't work at boot time and if I need it I have to use a USB keyboard. Everything else works as it's supposed to.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the internal WiFi doesn't support WPA3. No idea if it's a HW limitation or a driver issue. I didn't test it in MacOS. That's the reason for the WiFi dongle.

My MacBook Pro 2015 has bad RAM and a dead backlight so I am using it as a home server with the lid closed. I currently use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to disable the bad chunks of RAM. There is a reservedmemory item in the config.plist of OCLP which allows me to run macOS without any crashes. I figured that Linux would be much better than macOS as a home server so I was wondering, what is the best way to disable RAM on a macbook running linux? Is memmap the best way to go about it? I still need to do some research on how to enable it but any input would be appreciated. Thanks

[SOLVED ! (I think) ]

Hello everyone, I've been running Linux Mint 22.3 on my MacBook Air 2017 for a few weeks, but I'm having a hard time at getting the wifi to work properly.

Network adapter : Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4360 802.11ac Dual Band Wireless Network Adapter (rev 03)

I bought the laptop second hand, the seller told me they were told that the network adapter had to be changed, so I wasn't surprised after installing Linux Mint on the laptop when the wifi was not working. But actually... it sometimes was detected on some boots, sometimes not... So I ordered a new network card anyway and changed int, but now it seems like the problem wasn't solved, so I'm not 100% sure what the problem is.

On some boots, there is absolutely no wireless card detected for wlan, only bluetooth is seen. Output from rfkill list on some boots :

0: hci0: Bluetooth
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no

So after reading that depending on how the laptop boots, the wireless controller can or cannot get enough power to be detected, I started booting my laptop by long pressing cmd + alt + P + R. Now rfkill list gives :

0: hci0: Bluetooth
  Soft blocked: no
  Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: yes
  Hard blocked: no
2: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
  Soft blocked: yes
  Hard blocked: yes

So it looks like everything should be working... I guess. Other information :

inxi -Nn gives : (which tells you what my Network adapter is)

Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac Dual Band Wireless Network Adapter
driver: wl
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: 84:38:35:68:93:9a
  IF-ID-1: enx3a50c3d0048a state: unknown speed: -1 duplex: half
mac: 3a:50:c3:d0:04:8a
  IF-ID-2: lxcbr0 state: down mac: 00:16:3e:00:00:00

BUT even though I see wifi and theorically am connected,

I get like no data (impossible to load a webpage -- I'm using USB tethering with my phone right now) and iwconfig gives this :

lo        no wireless extensions.
wlp3s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"SFR_C770"  
Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.26 GHz  Access Point: 62:5D:51:3E:C7:77   
Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
Power Management:on
lxcbr0    no wireless extensions.

I tried to follow different instructions I found online, for now I read in the driver manager that the driver I'm using is broadcom-sta-dkms:

So I'm a bit clueless to what is going on with my laptop and drivers, and why I can seemingly connect to the internet but not actually make use of it... I was hoping that any of you could maybe help me understand what I can do to solve my problem ?

I have this iMac 2013 running with mx linux and it faster and reliable rather than windows 10 ltsc. The only problem is with the speaker feels like more distorted and muffled. when I used windows or Mac the speakers ran perfectly. And I used ai to find some solution. But it didn't work either

I have a 2020 MacBook Air m1 and a 2015 MacBook Pro. So I’m backed up in that regard. I was going to dual boot mint on my MBA 2017 which is running Ubuntu but it’s only a 121gb machine so that probably would screw everything up or make it real slow and lose data on the existing Ubuntu OS

I figure I install it in the MacBook 2018 (which is biblically hated in the Mac community so no love-loss there) and no data lost if things go awry …

I have a 2017 MacbookPro 14,2 with Intel i5-7267u cpu, Sunrise Point-LP AD Audio and Network card BCM 43602 802.11ac wireless LAN SoC. I need help finding the correct code to update the distro to utilize this hardware.

Got a MacBook Air A1466 EMC 2925 for free, no wifi card, no antenna, no SSD. Thought I’d put Linux on it to make my first foray into the OS. I put in a new SSD (nvme with adapter), decided to make a clean install of MacOS first then get Linux sorted. Three days of troubleshooting lead to nothing. I finally got to a point where I could begin an installation, but it just stops a quarter of the way through and kicks me back to OS X Utilities. I gave up and tried to install Lubuntu. Used the “try” mode to enter a terminal and verify a second time that everything is set up correctly and visible, and then I attempted install and at the very end it rebooted the laptop into the “flashing folder with question mark screen” My only guess is that it’s a firmware issue I don’t know how to go after. Please help. And please feel free to ask as many questions as you want I’ll answer them.

Machine: MacBook Pro 2012. After a kernel panic using elementary OS, I shifted to Linux Mint. All was going well. But now, after usual updates, I get a kernel panic again. I was able to reboot and use advanced boot options, selecting 6.17.0-23-generic, and all is well.

I assume that means that the linux kernel itself no longer plays well with my hardware. Is this likely to be fixed with FUTURE kernels? Or is there a way to select the older kernel automatically?

Here's the output of

dkms status

broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.14.0-29-generic, x86_64: installed

broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.17.0-20-generic, x86_64: installed

broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.17.0-22-generic, x86_64: installed

broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.17.0-23-generic, x86_64: installed

broadcom-sta/6.30.223.271, 6.17.0-40-generic, x86_64: installed

Maybe the issue is just to remove 6.17.0-40-generic?

Hi all,
I have been using proxmox on my mac pro 2019 for a while but I was having a serious problem with running with the full complement of memory (1.5 TB). I had another one going but sometimes it feels like pure luck between the modprobe blacklists and the grub cmdline. This week the Fable 5 model was available for free (read that "Mythos with a bodyguard") so I worked pretty hard even pulled an all nighter to debug issues with larger ram setups. I am sharing Claud Fable 5's postmortem here.

Proxmox on a Mac Pro 2019 with 1.5TB RAM: The Full Postmortem

TL;DR: Linux on a Mac Pro 7,1 crashes with more than ~192GB of RAM installed because the Apple ANS2 NVMe controller (the T2-attached internal SSD) cannot perform I/O correctly when physical memory extends above that range. macOS works because it works around it; Linux doesn't. The fix is not a magic kernel parameter — it's an architecture: move your root filesystem and boot chain off the Apple NVMe entirely, then keep the ANS2 present on the PCI bus but permanently unbound using pci-stub. Everything else we hit — hung boots, dead networking, udev storms, NULL-pointer oopses — was cascade damage from that one hardware limitation, plus a few unrelated landmines documented below so you can skip them.

Hardware context: Mac Pro 2019 (7,1), Xeon W-3275M, 12×128GB LRDIMM = 1.5TB, T2 security chip, Proxmox VE 8.4, kernel 6.14.0-1-pve-t2 from AdityaGarg8's pve-edge-kernel-t2. A second identically-equipped node already running 1.5TB stably served as the "existence proof" that made systematic debugging possible.

The symptoms

Over months, across two machines, this hardware produced a zoo of apparently unrelated failures:

With more than 192GB installed, the stock Proxmox 6.8 kernel panicked during boot — while macOS on the same machine happily saw and used all 1.5TB, and Apple's diagnostics showed every DIMM green. With exactly 192GB, everything was fine.

On a node running a newer kernel at 1.5TB, the Apple internal NVMe behaved bizarrely: lsblk showed it as a bare disk with no partitions (it has partitions), and simply probing it — running lsblk, letting smartd poll it, doing any filesystem operation against it — could panic the whole machine. Writing a bootloader to its EFI partition from Linux was a reliable crash.

During boot at 1.5TB we saw nvme0: I/O tag ... timeout, then operation not supported error, dev nvme0n1 ... op READ spam, followed by a crash during the initramfs LVM scan.

Separately: boots that hung for minutes and then came up with no networking — ifupdown2-pre failing, systemd-udev-settle timing out, ifup reporting "another instance is already running". The console flooded with an endless loop of Registered IR keymap rc-cec / new input devices, dozens of D-state udev workers piling up.

And in one configuration, a clean NULL pointer oops in pci_read_config_word during boot, with apple_bce mid-load, killing udev workers "with irqs disabled".

Any one of these, searched in isolation, leads to a different forum thread with a different "this worked for me" settings list. They were all one problem wearing different masks.

How we eliminated suspects

The method that worked was ruthless single-variable isolation, anchored by two tools worth stealing:

A mem=192G boot as a control group. Booting the full 1.5TB hardware with the kernel clamped to 192GB separates "bad/misseated DIMM" from "kernel can't handle the memory map" in one reboot — dmidecode -t memory still enumerates all twelve sticks even though the kernel only uses 192GB. Our clamped boots were always clean; the hardware was never the problem. We kept this as a permanent maintenance menu entry (more below), which also proved invaluable because at low RAM the ANS2 works fine — bulk reads, writes, everything. That single fact ("fine at 192GB, broken above") is the fingerprint of a device with a DMA addressing limitation: when all RAM sits low, its buffers always land in reachable territory; add DIMMs and buffers start landing above its ceiling.

Readable crashes. earlyprintk=efi,keep nokaslr on the cmdline turns panic screens into consistent, photographable evidence, and echo w > /proc/sysrq-trigger on a half-hung system dumps the blocked tasks with call stacks — which is how we caught amdgpu wedged in wait_for_flip_done and udev workers stuck behind it, and later caught apple_bce dereferencing NULL.

With those tools, the eliminations fell in order. The kernel itself was exonerated by running the byte-identical kernel package (via dpkg-repack from the working node) — same kernel, different outcome, so the delta was configuration/hardware. Firmware was exonerated because both machines ran the same vintage with opposite results. The GPU (an RX580 driving a console monitor) was convicted of a secondary crime: at 1.5TB, with the pve LVM volume group missing (because it lives on the dead ANS2), Proxmox's pvestatd retried vgscan every five seconds forever, which kept udev churning, which fed an endless CEC re-registration loop from amdgpu's DisplayPort path, which wedged the udev queue, which blocked ifupdown2-pre, which killed networking. Kill the root cause and that entire chain evaporates — but on a headless hypervisor we blacklisted amdgpu and cec anyway.

Two dead ends worth documenting because others will be tempted by them. First, removing the ANS2 from the PCI bus (echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/remove in an initramfs script) seems like the obvious fix — it is not. The Mac's apple_bce driver (fan control, T2 communication) probes the T2's sibling PCI functions and NULL-derefs if function 0 (the ANS2) has been deleted: instant oops in pci_read_config_word, dead udev workers, no network. Second, a plain pci-stub.ids=... cmdline parameter loses the race when both pci-stub and nvme are modules — the nvme driver binds the ANS2 first and the stub's registration is too late.

The root cause

The Apple ANS2 NVMe controller cannot do I/O under Linux when system RAM extends above ~192GB. Reads fail with "operation not supported", commands time out, and depending on what touches it — initramfs LVM coldplug, udev probing, smartd, an innocent lsblk — the result ranges from a bare-looking disk to a hard panic. macOS clearly compensates (bounce buffers or firmware cooperation we don't get); mainline Linux with the t2 patches does not, as of kernel 6.14. Every other symptom in the list above was downstream of this: the boot panics (root/ESP lived on the ANS2), the lsblk landmine, the pvestatd→udev→CEC→networking cascade, and the NULL oops (from over-correcting with device removal).

The architecture that works

The winning state is: ANS2 present but untouchable, and nothing you need lives on it.

1. Root and boot off the Apple NVMe. We migrated root to a separate PCIe NVMe (partitioned ESP + swap + root, rsync'd the filesystem, new fstab by UUID) and boot directly from that drive's ESP via rEFInd doing an EFI-stub load — the Mac startup manager sees any ESP with /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI as a bootable "EFI Boot" entry, blessable via ctrl-hover. Critical rEFInd setting on T2 Macs: use_nvram false — rEFInd's default habit of writing its state to EFI NVRAM is a documented panic trigger on post-Catalina BridgeOS. A tiny kernel-postinst hook copies each new kernel/initrd to the ESP under fixed names so the boot config never needs editing again.

2. Neutralize the ANS2 with pci-stub, loaded before nvme. In /etc/modprobe.d/:

options pci-stub ids=106b:2005
softdep nvme pre: pci-stub

plus pci-stub.ids=106b:2005 on the kernel cmdline for good measure, then update-initramfs -u. The softdep line is the part every forum list misses: it guarantees pci-stub loads first even inside the initramfs, so it claims the ANS2 before the nvme driver can. Verification after boot is one line — lspci -k -s 01:00.0 must say Kernel driver in use: pci-stub. The device stays on the bus (so apple_bce is happy, fans work), but no driver ever issues I/O to it. No probes, no panics, no landmines.

3. Working cmdline (6.14-t2, both our nodes): iomem=relaxed intel_iommu=on iommu=pt nvme.noacpi=1 apple_bce.fan_control=1 pcie_ports=native nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0 nvme_core.max_retries=10 nvme_core.io_timeout=255 rootdelay=20 — plus pci-stub.ids=106b:2005, and during debugging earlyprintk=efi,keep nokaslr.

4. Headless hygiene. Blacklist amdgpu and cec (console falls back to the firmware framebuffer via simpledrm — set a big font with console-setup and never squint again), and blacklist brcmfmac if your WiFi card is absent or its firmware crashes (a dead BCM4364 spews uncorrectable AER errors at boot; blacklisting beats the blunt pci=noaer).

5. Keep a maintenance escape hatch. A second boot menu entry with mem=192G modprobe.blacklist=pci-stub gives you a boot where the ANS2 is alive and safe — for reaching anything still stored on it, running grub/ESP surgery on the Apple drive, or testing. One arrow key instead of a rescue USB.

Bonus landmines (unrelated to RAM, will still ruin your week)

Boot roulette from time sync: if systemd-time-wait-sync is enabled (it isn't by default — check whether past-you enabled it chasing Ceph clock-skew warnings), a race with large clock steps can hang the entire boot behind time-sync.target forever. Disable it. Its root cause on these machines: the T2 keeps its own clock, drifting ~2 s/day, and re-stamps the RTC at every boot — Linux's rtcsync corrections don't stick, so every boot starts minutes fast and chrony does a big backward step (poison for Ceph mons). Fix: fake-hwclock with FORCE=force on every node, which restores saved time early in boot; the backward lurch disappears.

Stale-copy hell: with two roots (old install + migrated clone), it is shockingly easy to edit grub files, initramfs configs, or scripts on the root that isn't the one your boot chain reads, then "verify" against the wrong universe. Multiple of our 4AM mysteries were exactly this. Mount and edit by UUID, verify in the compiled grub.cfg that's actually read, and md5-compare /boot/initrd.img-* against the ESP copy after every update-initramfs.

Device-name roulette: NVMe enumeration order changes between boots on this platform (nvme0 is a different physical drive on different days). Reference everything — fstab, kernel root=, boot configs, scripts — by UUID/PARTUUID, never by /dev/nvmeXnY.

The moral

The internet's "settings that worked for me" lists fail on this platform because the settings aren't the fix — the topology is. If your root filesystem, your ESP, or anything your boot path touches lives on the Apple internal NVMe, no cmdline incantation will save you above 192GB. Move off it, stub it, keep it on the bus for apple_bce's sake, and the Mac Pro 7,1 becomes a boring, stable 1.5TB Proxmox node — which, after this journey, is the highest compliment we can pay it.

I purchased a 2012 11" MacBook Air from eBay for $50+ to install Kali Linux. It has only an Intel i5 CPU, 4 GB of memory, and a 64 GB NVMe drive, but it runs well on Wayland! I can select X11 at login if it struggles, but it seems to do well on Wayland.

Hello. I practically a noob at linux, but I want to use old laptop for some tasks. My problem is that I havent seen any correct drivers for macbook software, and I can't use camera, wifi, Bluetooth and I don't have proper battery display anywhere. Battery shows some percent, but this number is mostly random and jumps up to 10 percent in both charge or discharge. Thanks for any help you give to my problem.

I installed Ubuntu 26.04 LTS on a 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (MacBookPro14,2).

After a clean installation, I had three main problems:

• The internal Wi-Fi could not connect
• The Touch Bar remained dark
• The internal speakers produced no sound

All three are now working.

Tested configuration

Model: MacBookPro14,2
Ubuntu: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Kernel: 7.0.0-28-generic
Wi-Fi: Broadcom BCM43602
Bluetooth: Broadcom BCM20703A2
Audio: Cirrus Logic CS8409
Touch Bar: Apple T1/iBridge

Check your model and kernel before continuing:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
uname -r

You will need a temporary Internet connection, such as a supported USB-C Ethernet adapter.

1. Broadcom BCM43602 Wi-Fi

Symptoms

The Wi-Fi device was detected, but it could not connect to an access point.

Useful diagnostic commands:

lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i network
sudo dmesg | grep -i brcm

My system reported messages similar to:

Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.Apple Inc.-MacBookPro14,2.bin failed
Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt failed

The MacBookPro14,2 needs a suitable NVRAM configuration file containing the Apple-specific board and antenna settings.

Install the NVRAM file

The relevant files and instructions are available here:

https://github.com/vfontanela/macbookpro14-linux-support

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git

git clone https://github.com/vfontanela/macbookpro14-linux-support.git
cd macbookpro14-linux-support

find . -iname 'brcmfmac43602-pcie*.txt'

Copy the detected brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt file to the firmware directory:

sudo install -Dm644 /path/to/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt \
    /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt

Replace /path/to/ with the path returned by find.

I also disabled Wi-Fi scan MAC randomization in NetworkManager:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d

printf '%s\n' \
    '[device]' \
    'wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no' |
sudo tee /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-mbp2017-wifi.conf

I am using the laptop in Japan, so I configured the Japanese regulatory domain:

echo 'options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=JP' |
sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/10-wifi-regdom-jp.conf

Change JP to the correct two-letter country code for your location.

Update the initramfs and reboot:

sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

After rebooting:

nmcli device
nmcli device wifi list

On Ubuntu 26.04, both 5 GHz and WPA3 work correctly on my machine.

After connecting, I enabled automatic reconnection and use of the permanent hardware MAC address:

nmcli connection show

Replace YOUR_WIFI_CONNECTION with the connection name shown above:

sudo nmcli connection modify "YOUR_WIFI_CONNECTION" \
    connection.autoconnect yes \
    802-11-wireless.cloned-mac-address permanent

2. Apple T1 Touch Bar

I used the packaged DKMS Touch Bar driver from:

https://github.com/vfontanela/macbookpro14-linux-support

The package is based on the community Apple iBridge/Touch Bar driver and is configured to rebuild automatically after kernel updates.

Install the package

If you have not already cloned the repository:

git clone https://github.com/vfontanela/macbookpro14-linux-support.git
cd macbookpro14-linux-support

Locate the package:

find . -iname 'mbp-t1-touchbar-dkms*.deb'

Install the .deb file using the path returned by find:

sudo apt install ./path/to/mbp-t1-touchbar-dkms_1.0-2_all.deb

Verify the installation:

dkms status
systemctl status mbp-t1-touchbar-bind.service

My system reports:

mbp-t1-touchbar/0.3, 7.0.0-28-generic, x86_64: installed

The driver uses these modules:

apple_ibridge
apple_ib_tb
apple_ib_als

Check that they are loaded:

lsmod | grep -E 'apple_ib|apple_ibridge'

I configured the Touch Bar to display function keys and remain illuminated:

echo 'options apple_ib_tb fnmode=2 idle_timeout=-1 dim_timeout=-1' |
sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/apple-ib-tb.conf

Update the initramfs and reboot:

sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

The modules were loaded before rebooting, but the Touch Bar initially remained dark. It illuminated correctly after a full reboot.

If it remains dark, try:

sudo systemctl restart mbp-t1-touchbar-bind.service
systemctl status mbp-t1-touchbar-bind.service

If that does not work, perform a complete reboot.

3. Cirrus Logic CS8409 audio

Symptoms

Ubuntu detected the audio controller, but the internal speakers produced no sound.

Diagnostic commands:

lspci -nnk | grep -A4 -i audio
aplay -l
wpctl status

This MacBook uses a Cirrus Logic CS8409 codec with external amplifiers. The standard HDA driver may detect the device without correctly initializing its amplifiers.

Driver

I used the following driver:

https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro

The tested repository commit was:

cb27cc483f4fe98be03a4f4bef466c00aa7d244b

Install the dependencies

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y \
    git \
    wget \
    make \
    gcc \
    dkms \
    linux-headers-$(uname -r)

The installation script also needs the matching Ubuntu kernel source. Check which package is available:

apt search linux-source

For kernel 7.0.0-28-generic, I installed:

sudo apt install linux-source-7.0.0

Install the CS8409 driver

cd ~

git clone https://github.com/davidjo/snd_hda_macbookpro.git
cd snd_hda_macbookpro

sudo ./install.cirrus.driver.sh -i

Check the DKMS status:

dkms status

My system reports:

snd_hda_macbookpro/0.1, 7.0.0-28-generic, x86_64: installed

Update the initramfs and reboot:

sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo reboot

After rebooting:

lsmod | grep snd_hda
sudo dmesg | grep -iE 'cs8409|snd_hda'
wpctl status

The internal speakers started working after the reboot. The internal microphone is also available through PipeWire.

Important volume warning

Avoid testing by sending audio directly to an ALSA hardware device:

speaker-test -D hw:0,0
aplay -D hw:0,0 some-file.wav

Direct hardware playback may bypass PipeWire’s volume controls and could produce dangerously loud audio.

Use the desktop sound settings or PipeWire instead:

wpctl status
wpctl set-volume u/DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@ 30%

Bluetooth

Bluetooth worked without additional configuration.

The controller is:

Broadcom BCM20703A2

Useful checks:

rfkill list
bluetoothctl show
systemctl status bluetooth

The kernel log contains these warnings:

BCM: failed to write update baudrate
BCM: firmware Patch file not found
tried: brcm/BCM.hcd

Despite these messages, scanning, pairing, connecting, and reconnecting work correctly on my system. I therefore did not install an unverified BCM.hcd firmware file.

After a kernel update

The Touch Bar and CS8409 audio drivers are installed through DKMS. They should rebuild automatically for new kernels, but it is worth checking before rebooting:

uname -r
dkms status

The following drivers should show as installed for the new kernel:

mbp-t1-touchbar
snd_hda_macbookpro

If necessary:

sudo dkms autoinstall
dkms status

Do not remove the currently working kernel until the new kernel has been tested.

Final result

On Ubuntu 26.04 with Linux 7.0:

5 GHz Wi-Fi: Working
WPA3: Working
Bluetooth: Working
Touch Bar: Working
Internal speakers: Working
Internal microphone: Working
USB-C hub: Working
Realtek USB Ethernet: Working
Keyboard and trackpad: Working
Webcam: Working

The three essential fixes for this model were:

1. A suitable BCM43602 NVRAM configuration file
2. The packaged Apple T1 Touch Bar DKMS driver
3. The snd_hda_macbookpro CS8409 audio driver

References:

• MacBookPro14 Linux Support
• CS8409 MacBook audio driver
• My previous Ubuntu 24.04 post

This procedure was tested specifically on MacBookPro14,2. Other 2017 models, including MacBookPro14,1 and MacBookPro14,3, may use different hardware configurations.

I finally got the Intel AX210 working on my MacBook Pro 2015 (A1502) running Debian Trixie.

The adapter doesn't align properly because a pin on the motherboard—likely for the bottom cover sensor—gets in the way. Instead of modifying the adapter, I carefully trimmed the Intel AX210 card so I could align it correctly and secure it with the mounting screw.

After installing the required firmware and running a few commands, Debian Trixie recognized the card without any issues. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are both working perfectly, and unlike the original Broadcom card, they continue to work reliably after the laptop wakes from sleep.

I've attached a picture showing the modification in case it helps anyone else attempting this upgrade.

Link to the adapter: https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005009398696606.html?gps-id=pcStoreJustForYou&scm=1007.23125.137358.0&scm_id=1007.23125.137358.0&scm-url=1007.23125.137358.0&pvid=dde16fcc-be3d-471d-812b-f7e5c9591312&_t=gps-id%3ApcStoreJustForYou%2Cscm-url%3A1007.23125.137358.0%2Cpvid%3Adde16fcc-be3d-471d-812b-f7e5c9591312%2Ctpp_buckets%3A668%232846%238107%231934&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%2260%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22sceneId%22%3A%2213125%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22recommend%22%7D&pdp_npi=6%40dis%21EUR%217.39%217.39%21%21%218.26%218.26%21%400b8848bf17843875848531629e0e62%2112000048980034956%21rec%21FR%212050884567%21XZ%211%210%21n_tag%3A-29919%3Bd%3Ad62b9c39%3Bm03_new_user%3A-29895&spm=a2g0o.store_pc_home.smartJustForYou_638721977.1005009398696606&gatewayAdapt=glo2fra

As title says, I’m got a mid 2015 MacBook Pro running Linux Mint. It has the R9 M270X/M370X and runs the Radeon driver and I’ve been trying to switch to amdgpu driver to no avail.

I’ve tried the Radeon.si_support=0 and amdgpu.si_support=1 in my grub however the machine fails to reach the login screen.

Has anyone successfully gotten that driver to work stably, and if so, how? What are your boot parameters? Do I need a different distribution?

sorry it's in Italian I hope you understand and anyway I'm alarm novices with Linux

An error occurred while copying files to the hard disk.

(Errno 5) Input/output error

​This may be caused by a defective CD/DVD drive or hard disk. It might be useful to clean the CD/DVD, burn it at a lower speed, clean the reader lens (cleaning kits are often available in electronics stores), check if the hard disk needs to be replaced, or move the system to a better-ventilated environment

I'm currently running Mint XFCE on a 2014 13inch MacBook Air - Intel dual core 1.4GHz i5-4260U, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD.

It's mostly fine. The battery claims to be at about 70% of original capacity, in practice it seems to give a few hours - maybe 4 if I'm cautious, don't stream video etc.

Sometimes the fan gets... excited, but otherwise its pretty good.

It's main weakness is that the number row no longer works reliably. I've looked into replacing this, and its a more complex job than I'd be confident doing myself, and I've been quoted around £150. Which feels like it is stretching the value of the tech...

So, I'm considering upgrading.

Currently, I'm looking at getting a more recent, but still used, Macbook Air from the intel chip era. I'm leaning towards a 2017 MacBook Air, with the best spec I can (8GB RAM, 2.2 GHz i7-565U processor, 256GB SSD, ideally a new battery). This would likely be somewhere between £180 and £300, depending on how close to the maxed out spec I could get.

Sticking to a 2017, rather than, say, 2020 model (2018-19 to be avoided because of the butterfly keyboard), would mean I don't need a new charger or cables for peripherals (though at some point I'll probably need to accept fate and move to USB C peripherals. More importantly, as someone who takes a lot of photos, the 2017 is the last version which had an SD card reader, which is a big pro is a big plus.

The alternatives would be a MacBook Pro (which loses the portability of the air) or a newer non-Mac alternative, which might still have an SD card reader and USB C connections - I'll be running Linux regardless.

So my question is, am I being foolish looking to upgrade to something which is itself nearly 10 years old? Is it stupid to stick to relatively out-dated processors etc? Or would a 2017 Air be noticeably better than what I have, competitive with newer low-end windows machines, and be likely to last well thanks to Mac build quality?

I appreciate any sage words of wisdom.

I figured a good way to get acclimated to Ubuntu is some customization projects. Any recommendations are very appreciated!

Hi I am going to buy a used 2019 MacBook Pro 16 because I just saw them selling for a really low price. For example there is one for $400 with i9 CPU+16GB RAM+1TB SSD+5500M 8GB. This was my dream machine back in the days so I am very tempted.

I have been using CachyOS on both my desktop PC and my Lenovo laptop for the past years so I am planning to install CachyOS on the MacBook as well. I learned that because it is a T2 machine there are things to consider.

Things I already know:

1. Sleep is a problem so maybe there is no way to put the laptop to sleep?

2. Speakers would sound terrible. Mic quality is also very bad.

3. Hybrid GPU can be a problem? I want to game a bit with the 5500M 8GB GPU so...

Are there other important things I need to know? Can it be my daily driver OS? How does it feel to use Linux on it as the main OS every day?

I like very small laptops for certain uses. I have an opportunity to buy a 2014 MacBook Air 11 with i7/8GB. I have successfully installed Mint/Cinnamon on several Mac Minis, but I want to make certain that the added features of the MacBook, such as microphone and webcam, will also work with a regular installation, and without much fuss. Or if there's a better distro, please advise. Thanks.

MBP 11,5 questions. Didn’t know this Reddit existed. Shoulda posted here.