Discussion
(Almost) ready to turn my beloved MacBook Air 2013 - which is gathering dust on a shelf - into a #Linux laptop.
Only problem: multiple people might have swayed me to pick Arch Linux as the distro. #ArchLinux!!! I know NOTHING but from all the Linux memes I've seen over the years, I've always been intimidated by it.
Debating whether to go with it or #Mint or #Ubuntu. Thoughts?
Edit / update: it's now a toss-up between Mint and Fedora. I may try Arch on my Raspi4
@_elena Ubuntu is flirting with "AI capabilities", enabling LLM-driven voice-to-text search in the latest version, so I am considering a permanent move away from the land of *buntu.. The current LTS (26.04) does not ride the AI hypewave, so that's at least an option for now.
@_elena My vote? Linux Mint. And don't let the Arch Linux enthusiasts bully you. 😄
Seriously, an old MacBook Air from 2013 is an excellent candidate for a second life with Linux. But I'd choose the distribution based on what you want to get out of the machine.
@_elena Before I swapped to Linux I spent months looking at distros to make a decision what was right for me. I needed something that I could work with, could get started easily, had a large online community to seek help if needed and was heavily customisable. The answer was Mint.
I've had a fair few fights and needed to relearn some stuff but that's no different than with Mac or Windows, just need to find new spaces for support (hence that was important to me in making my decision).
But I'm a proud and happy user of Mint.
@_elena I ran Ubuntu on my Air quite happily.
@Edent thanks Terence! Did you have problems getting your Wifi to work?
@_elena I can't find anything in my notes about that. Sorry! I think the hardest part was getting it to dual book - but I recall the hardware working just fine.
@Edent got it! I'm not going to create a dual boot, but just wipe the drive and have Linux on it...
@_elena @Edent Just a heads up, make sure to use your macbook air or another mac to make a macos installer USB before you install any linux distro in case you ever want to go back
Apple, being apple, doesn't let just anyone just download an ISO, the only officially supported routes to create recovery media require using a mac with a functional install of macos
@_elena @Edent Several of the Linux distros like MX, & probably Fedora or Ubuntu will handle drivers for Mac if you install with ethernet connection during install process. Some installs you have to be sure and use correct checkboxes, some you need to copy drivers from Mac OS before upgrade or get them elsewhere. Usually it is just drivers for Wifi, bluetooth, and sometimes audio because they are proprietary w Mac & some distros strict about default being no proprietary software just FOSS
@_elena if you want to try a easy to install version of arch there is Omarchy but you'll have to get used to a tiling window manager and doing almost everything with keyboard.
@multiscan I will NEVER EVER EVER use Omarchy sorry. Context: https://blogs.gnome.org/alatiera/2025/11/06/dhh-and-omarchy-midlife-crisis/ I even unsubscribed from 1Password because they were sponsoring it
@_elena @multiscan
Oh, I just got a bit worried you would fall for it.
Don't touch it with a barge pole!
@_elena I use Mint on the laptop that I use a lot. It is very easy to handle and update. For my writing I have a special laptop with Ubuntu. They say it is more difficult I don't know.
@CorinaKarstenberg thanks! I have Ubuntu on my Raspberry Pi 4 and I like it... but I've always been tempted by Mint
@_elena may I throw in a wrench and suggest Fedora?
It’s running SO well on my MacBook Air 2014.
I had mint on it, my previous favourite distro, but Fedora runs SO much better.
@sylvia oooooh thank you for the advice Sylvia! Did you have issues with internet connectivity? (aka getting your Wifi to work)?
@_elena I installed Arch on my 2015 MacBook, having never used Arch before that, but having run other flavours of Linux as my primary OS for years. It was not a walk in the park. But I did get it to run in some capacity after a while. It was interesting to do, but I was curious about doing it.
@greger thanks! I hear that the documentation is really good and it may be relatively easy to get internet connectivity right away... but I'm also tempted by Mint
@_elena I can only share that my experience with Mint was very good coming from Windows ant not knowing anything about Linux before.
@_elena Mint works very well on my imac from 2014. Only getting wifi to work is a bit of a hassle. N=1 and not a macbook.
@_elena I'm not sure it supports macs, but CachyOs is basically Arch in easy mode. Especially if you pick Cosmic, KDE or Gnome as your desktop during the (easy, guided) setup.