this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Or a Mac ime. I tried to run mint OS on a 2016 intel MBPro and it was a disaster. I got it up and running but the Touch Bar didn’t work, the Wi-Fi didn’t work, all kinds of issues.
That's because Apple doesn't release drivers for all those components.
Running anything but a Mac OS on a Mac is a nice pet project, but you can't expect Linux to work.
It depends. I installed mint on a 2011 MBP a couple of years ago and it was a breeze. I installed arch on it recently and the only snag was having to install the proprietary Broadcom driver to get wireless. It runs great though — which is just as well because it would actually be more difficult to install OSX on the bloody thing, seeing as they no longer support it.
A 2016 MBP is still a bit recent, but, as a general rule of thumb, by the time a Mac stops getting software updates, Linux will be ready for it.
You should check out what the Asahi Linux project has been able to do with the ARM Macs already, it's pretty impressive.
I do check in on it every now and again, and it is impressive! I reckon they'll be able to offer a seamless transition once Apple stops servicing M1 Macs, which is really good going. But, depending on your use case, making the leap now would mean sacrificing some functionality
I hate to break it to you friendo, but 8 year old hardware isn't recent. It may still be usable, but that doesn't make it recent. It's ok though grandpa, let's get you back to bed
Learn to read.
I can read, and a 2016 MacBook pro is not even a bit recent; It's from 8 years ago :-)
Just a bit of light-hearted leg pulling, nothing to get worked up over
8 years is recent if it's apple hardware and you're expecting Linux to work flawlessly out of the box. Maybe things were different back in your day though
It was a lighthearted jab at calling 8 years ago recent; Not a political statement about Apple or operating systems.
8 years is a ton of time in tech, CPUs from 2016 are ancient. Single-core CPU performance has doubled in Intel's laptop chips since then, and modern laptop CPUs from Intel are often 12-core, versus the top end 2016 MacBook Pro having 4 cores.
Not trying to start any fights, was just poking fun at the choice to call 2016 recent
Dude, there are so many contexts in which 2016 could be considered 'recent', including the one I was speaking in, and yet you march into my mentions with the patronizing bullshit. I don't know, maybe you think you're being friendly, but it doesn't feel friendly to me.
I'm sorry, my goal wasn't to be a bother. My initial comment was intended to be friendly and funny - I'm not trying to patronize or be antagonistic. I learned a couple of years ago that I have autism, so I should have learned my lesson by now and stopped trying to be funny; It never pans out the way I mean for it to.
Hope I wasn't too much of a drag on your day, and I hope it gets better for you.
With that said, a genuine question with no jokes: Can you help me understand how 2016 counts as recent, given the context? It was almost a decade ago, and I'm having trouble comprehending how it counts at all as recent since in tech "recent" usually means "in the last 2-3 years" unless you're comparing to something from a much longer time ago like the 90s.
Ok, no worries. I'm not sure how I can explain to you what I meant tbh. The context is that Apple hardware that recent is unlikely to have fully Linux support yet, simply that. It is a relative claim, but you seem to have parsed it as an absolute?
NixOS on an M2 Air here. Works fine, other than the fingerprint reader.
I know that now but I had a bunch of people encourage me to do it as if it was a reasonable thing for a novice to crack lol
The 2016-2017 MBP are unusually bad. Devices on either side of that? You're fine. But the 2016-2017 devices? No wifi (except in some extremely unusual cases) is the big problem. Even then, it amazes me how much does work, with zero configuration, with a simple graphical install. The problem with this vintage MBP isn't that it's hard to get running--it's that it's (almost) impossible, but the parts that aren't impossible are as smooth as they can be.
Yes, that's cold comfort. But I'm speaking from the POV of an owner of a 2017 MBP who desperately wanted to keep it going.
The coda to the story is that my wife used it for a while with her business but it fell victim to an absolutely bizarre heat issue where the heat sink vents hot air directly across the controller cable for the display, leading to inevitable failure. Again: not an issue on either side of this model year. It's sad because it could've served for another 4-5 years, making the initial purchase price substantially more tolerable.
Apple doesn't support Linux
I mean I got mint OS running so it depends on what you mean by “support.”
Surprisingly it was really easy to install fedora on my wife’s MacBook Pro from 2012.
The only thing I had to do for everything to work perfectly was to install the RPM fusion repository and accept that the @ is gonna be mapped to the wrong key.
It’s the easiest device I’ve had for installing Linux in quite a while..
If it is a mapping issue you can manually change it
I’ve found some tutorials online, but I’m always cautious with these things because the more I tinker, the more I break my systems 😅