Hi all, thanks in advance for indulging a complete newbie! I’d like to try Linux on an 11-year-old MacBook Pro (gifted by a relative), but I don’t know where to start. What distribution would you recommend based on my background?
-Coming from the Mac world; haven’t used a PC/Windows since before the pandemic. I’d prefer something that feels similar to MacOS.
-Not a techie. I’ve forgotten everything (everything!) I ever learned about command line because I never ended up needing to use it, and I haven’t had to debug anything in a long time.
-What I’ll be using it for: accessing the internet, various kinds of creative projects that I’ll probably try making with FOSS software (something I’ve only recently started to look into), and making another attempt at learning programming (my interest will probably peter out before I get anywhere with it, though, because that’s what happened the last two times). Probably won’t be gaming. I’d prefer having the option to use mainstream office software in case anything happens to my current computer, but I don’t actually expect anything to happen to it in the next few years, so that’s just a nice-to-have.
-Priorities: works on old Mac hardware, good for privacy, decent software availability, not buggy, ability to avoid generative AI (i.e., no repeat of Apple installing the Image Playground app on my computer along with a software update, without the ability to remove it.)
It seems like a lot of people recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint to beginners, but I’m seeing some people complaining that Ubuntu is has spyware(?) and forces things users don’t want, and it seems like Linux Mint is usually recommended to people coming from Windows, so IDK if either of those make sense for me. Advice/recommendations appreciated!
I would also recommend Linux Mint for you. While the UI/UX (either Cinnamon, MATE, or Xfce) bares resemblance to Windows at first, it can easily be reshaped however you wish; or even replaced entirely with a more macOS-esque desktop environment (such as Pantheon or GNOME).
However, as Macintosh hardware has some differences to PC, you may need to install rEFInd beforehand. It has been a while since I installed Linux on a Mac, so I don’t know if this is still necessary!
To be more helpful, I would need to know your exact model number (this should be something like “MacBookPro 12,1”).
It’s a MacBook Pro Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015. Model A1502. https://support.apple.com/en-us/111959
My first question was going to be specs, but that’s new enough that there’s plenty of flavors that should work fine. I have a 2009 MacBook that I was able to up memory to 8GB, and that opened up being able to put Linux Mint vs. the Kubuntu it was running but struggling with (mainly due to Firefox needing 1GB sometimes which would kill its 2GB RAM).
Only real issue is every great once in a while Cinnamon acts flaky (garbage characters) but I put a shortcut to restart it that seems to fix it without messing anything up. Being a secondary computer for me, that’s good enough.
Thanks! Good to know.
Linux Mint sounds like a solid choice after all. Hmm, occasional flakiness/garbage characters with the Cinnamon desktop environment? I’d rather avoid that but could deal with it if I really needed to. I do tend to prefer things that “just work” though. I’m probably going to try GNOME first based on a lot of the comments here.
Honestly, it could be because of the age of the hardware I’m working with. Just haven’t bothered pursuing why it occurs since I have a workaround. The surprising thing to me is how simple the install was for both Linux versions. I did not expect it to boot the first time with no issues at all to troubleshoot to get things to work.