Linux on a 15 year MacBook? - Part 1 - Week 9 of Using Linux

  

 Week 9

 Linux is known to run well on a massive range of devices, including consoles. That is why I want try to install Linux Mint XFCE on a MacBook Pro from the early 2010s. 

 Why Linux Mint XFCE?

 Well, Linux Mint is known to be very simple and straight forward to use for people who are doing the switch from another operating system to Linux (such as Windows). It has great support and compatibility, while even being light weight, therefore making it usable on relatively old devices. However, I doubt that the standard Linux Mint (Cinnamon) would be light weight enough, so that is why I am installing the XFCE version, which can apparently only use around 500-700 MB of RAM while being idle. If you compare it to Windows or even my CachyOS Linux install, there is a large difference. I want the old computer to be able to be used for daily tasks, such as writing documents, preparing slideshows, browsing the internet, and everything that a casual user would do (excluding gaming, because it probably wouldn't be capable of running games). 

 But you might be wondering, why not stick to MacOS? The prehistoric version of MacOS that is already installed is probably rather stable, but it lacks support updates and it probably isn't as optimised for the computer that it was designed for nearly over 15 years later, when the battery is nearly fully degraded. 

  The process

  I will be listing the steps that I took in detail so that anyone that wants to try something similar can use this as a baseline to assist them (or learn from my mistakes). 

 To start with I went over to Linux Mint XFCE Edition's website and chose the closest mirror to download the ".iso" file, which was a Swedish one. However did this not go as smoothly as I thought it would have gone. I downloaded the file from the Bahnhof mirror, but the download speed was barely 100 kilobytes per second. The estimated time of completion was fluctuating from 6 hours to 7 hours, and after waiting nearly an hour and a half (reaching around 15-30% of the download), I decided to cancel the download, as I wasn't going to wait that long.

 What I did next was trying out another Swedish mirror, which turned out to download nearly 10 times as fast, with the download taking approximately 30 to 45 minutes. So if you are experiencing a minuscule download speed for a rather small file (2.8 gigabytes), downloading from another mirror might just help fix the issue.

 After the download, I went ahead and installed "Ventoy" from the Arch User Repository (AUR) with the "yay" command in the terminal. After formatting my 128 gigabyte USB drive (yes, it is overkill, but who cares?), I copied the .iso file into its respective space in the file manager and ejected it from my computer.  

 And that's it for now, I will soon try booting the MacBook through BIOS/UEFI. I am really curious to see how it will look, since it isn't even supposed to be accessed by the regular user (unlike PC motherboards). This is only the first part of this series, so I will keep you guys updated in my next post (hopefully next week?). Thanks for tagging along and reading.

This is the ninth episode of my Linux Experience 2026 blog series. Every week, I upload a post talking about my experience using this unique operating system! Sign-up with your email to receive a notification when a new blog releases, it's free! 

Week 8

Week 7

Week 1 

My PC Specifications:

    AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3D

    AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB VRAM

    32 GB DDR5 6000Mhz CL30 RAM

    2 TB NVMe 5.0 SSD 

 Other Components:

    27'' 2560x1440 320Hz 1ms Monitor

    B850-Plus Motherboard (WiFi 7)

    850W Power Supply

    Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB

    5x Artic P12 Case Fans

    Phanteks XT Pro Chassis

 Support me here

 

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