Ive seen more than a few Linux fans using apple hardware because it's usually quite sleek, even if its antithetical to a lot of other things linux users tend to like such as repairability.
I also see ThinkPads being used aswell.
I currently have Linux on:
- two MacBook Airs
- two MacBook Pros
- two iMacs
- one 2013 Mac Pro ( Proxmoxx )
So, you could say that I like Linux on Apple hardware. All of the above is older kit by the way.
I also have Dell and Thinkpad machines but the Apple units are by far my favourite to use.
One thing that certainly sucks though is the soldered on RAM. I have a 2012 MacBook with 16 gigs of RAM (upgraded). My much newer units will never have more than 8.
I might be wrong but - can't you just normally install another OS on Intel Macbooks?
Yes and no. You need custom deivers for keyboard, backlight, speakers, webcam, touchpad… basically everything that isn’t the CPU and display
Nope. That is just for T2 macs. Anything prior installs like on any PCs
Linux works pretty well on most Macbooks to date. Granted it's probably slower and guaranteed than most modern laptops but those custom drivers are usually working on Linux not too long after launch.
Linus himself uses a macbook, I'm sure the mainline kernel has decent support for somewhat recent hardware
Asahi Linux has done great work for compatibility for recent apple hardware. They've even gotten some decent Vulkan performance from the GPU despite reverse engineering it from scratch - Apple meanwhile refuses to implement Vulkan in favour of Metal, which makes MacOS less compatible with graphically intensive apps than Linux.
All praise the queen, Asahi Lina!
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills whenever I see people talking about running any Linux distro on a Mac. Every time I try it's a bad time with driver support. And yes I used t2linux, most recently with Ubuntu. It came with nonfunctional sleep mode (apparently a problem since Sonoma), a very buggy Bluetooth controller and a very janky feeling cursor movement with the trackpad. Also my mic volume was super low on Zoom calls.
What am I missing?
It really does depend on the model. Pre-T2 security chip, running Linux on a Mac was more or less the same as running it anywhere else as long as you had the drivers installed. The T2 definitely complicated things a lot.
I had an ok experience with Arch and a 2012 macbook pro back in the day. Wifi and suspend all worked without any tweaking. Moved on to using a ThinkPad after that though.
I still have one of those! Works flawlessly.
When did Manjaro release an image for x86 MacBooks ?
a long time ago; i used fedora on my macbook for almost 5 years, until it died
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