Linux on 2013 Mac Desktop - Wish Me Luck

SlowCoder

Gold Member
Gold Supporter
Joined
May 2, 2022
Messages
455
Reaction score
316
Credits
3,611
My parents have upgraded to a new Mac, because their old one from 2013 can't be upgraded to the latest MacOS version. So I am now the owner of a Mac. They requested the Mac to be securely wiped. As I have no use for MacOS, I'm going to install LMDE5.

I know, you're wondering why "wish me luck?" Mac is a bit of a different beast when it comes to Linux. So I walk through it with caution.
 


Good luck, and take an antacid if it gives you heartburn.

Chris
 
IIRC (and I might not) a Mac of that era only needs 'nomodeset' to boot the installation media without a black screen.
 
IIRC (and I might not) a Mac of that era only needs 'nomodeset' to boot the installation media without a black screen.
No, it's a white screen.;)
I 'inherit' a 2011 McBook Air from my daughter.
After taking an insurance by cloning the HD, I played with it with Antix 21 and it worked !
During booting it kept thinking (white screen) for a long time, I thought of quitting but somehow I got the menu in the end.
 
Installing Linux on an iMac should not cause any problems, because they are carefully assembled for unix, on which MacOS was built upon via Darwin. I have installed several linux distros on my iMac 2015, only a few of them gave me a headache ! ;-)
 
Success!

The install went fairly smooth. I booted to the live USB, and everything worked, except the BCM4360 wireless. I was thinking Linux should pretty well have older Broadcom drivers sorted, and I assumed the driver would be active in the ISO. Modprobe showed the appropriate driver loaded, but the interface was down, and I couldn't get it up.

Went ahead with the install anyway. Lo and behold, the wireless works without issues, and without having to install anything.

IIRC (and I might not) a Mac of that era only needs 'nomodeset' to boot the installation media without a black screen.
This wasn't an issue in my case.

The machine came with an Apple Magic Touchpad (v1), which I was able to pair and use. Now I have to get used to 2-finger tap for right-click emulation.
 
My parents have upgraded to a new Mac, because their old one from 2013 can't be upgraded to the latest MacOS version. So I am now the owner of a Mac. They requested the Mac to be securely wiped. As I have no use for MacOS, I'm going to install LMDE5.

I know, you're wondering why "wish me luck?" Mac is a bit of a different beast when it comes to Linux. So I walk through it with caution.

I had installed Mint on a 2013 iMac. So it can be done.
 
Nice outcome :)

Avagudweegend

Wizard
 
This wasn't an issue in my case.

Hmm... I don't know enough about Macs to be sure. That era came with Nvidia video cards and they're such that they require nomodeset. Maybe not all did/do? I know it's such a common thing that it's pretty much the first piece of advice when people are trying to install Linux on Macs from around then. Alas, I don't know enough to be sure of anything, as I'm not really a Mac kinda guy.
 
Congratulations, with the information available to you, I did not doubt you would succeed,
 

Members online


Latest posts

Top