Getting An Old MacBook Air & Installing Linux (Ubuntu? Mint?). Any Advice?

[2112st]

I've been curious about trying this for quite some time, and since the MacBook Airs from early/mid 2010s are so ridiculously cheap, I'd like to give this a try. While I would be using this mostly for writing fiction, I'm curious as to what else can be done with it Mr. ActionRetro had some cool videos on it, and I came across this one just now.

So-is there anything I should keep in mind? Thanks.

 

[PentaxEnthusiast]

I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2012 MBP logic board in it as my original GPU was dying. I've not run MacOS on it in quite some time; in fact, right now I'm running EndeavourOS (I like Arch, but going through installing Arch on this like I have in the past is a pain with getting all the drivers needed for the hardware and EOS just works) and use it daily. Battery life leaves a lot to be desired, but it's to be expected for a laptop of its age with a power hungry i7 CPU.

I feel as though Ubuntu has lost its way, though plenty of people still love it. I'm a huge advocate for Mint, whether it's the Ubuntu-based version or LMDE; both are solid options! Mint is actually what I was running on the 2011 MBP just before I moved back to an Arch-based OS.

I've also got a 2015 MacBook Air that's running pure Arch with a basic window manager and that's it. Steam is on it and works good enough for older games! Go for it!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Absolutely give it a shot undoubtedly with so many distros out there that you’ll get ten ppl respond with ten different distros LOL.

I am a fan of MX Linux+XFCE desktop on early Intel Macs. Give a few a try and see which works best for you. I mean they’re all free so why not ? I think MX is pretty great though especially for someone getting into the pool for the first time.

Good luck.