So last year my wife decided that she was sick of her 2017 MacBook Air being out of support. Mainly it was that her browser wasn’t updated and she was increasingly unable to access websites she used frequently. I grabbed a bunch of different liveUSB imgs, and ElementaryOS was the only one that would even boot. So that’s what we installed. Some minor early issues that I’d anticipated with the webcam. And everything was fine, just worked.
Then there was a kernel version upgrade. Which resulted in a kernel panic. Update had replaced the newer broadcom driver with an older broken one, and that derailed the whole thing. Fine, relatively easy fix.
6 months of minor updates, and now we’re on vacation, but my wife has a teams meeting she has to attend. We’re testing out the WiFi at the hotel and just making sure everything is up to date and functions as expected. Webcam isn’t working, and there’s no FacetimeHD driver anymore. Cool, it was pretty easy to install the first time once I’d found all the files and full instructions. Then get a notification about an update, so update it. Kernel panic.
The Devs rarely interact with any of the places they say to ask questions, there’s not really any good documentation. And I really can’t be fucked trouble-shooting for an hour or two every time the kernel version changes.
The idea of ElementaryOS is nice, set and forget, MacOS like looks, but it really hasn’t been anywhere near a painless experience. I’m no Linux Greybeard, but I am experienced and knowledgeable enough to muddle through most issues. The fact that it’s presented as a noob friendly distro that requires no/minimal administration is, in my opinion, kinda BS. As long as nothing goes wrong during updates…
Default for grub is to run a 0 timeout and hidden. After the first update malarkey I changed it, but apparently that only lasted to the next update…
My advice for anyone who is looking for a distro for someone who isn’t very tech literate, avoid ElementaryOS. It lulls you into a false sense of stability, then when it breaks, it breaks hard.
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So im an old IT guy. I don’t mean this as a you should do this but you know in any job there are types. Im the paranoid IT guy type. I generally never update or mess with a systems unless im ready to put some time recovering from some issue. Now granted I have not really had any on my linux installs now that its my daily driver but I still treat it like that. Its also a reason I wanted to go from a standard type of install (I used zorin) to an image based on (now I use bazzite). I also use app images to make moving to a new system to be easier. There has already been a lot of advice on alt distros. I kinda agree with you on people recommending distros for begginners or non tech people. I recommended zorin because it came with softwrae out of the box. its a big deal to me you could burn a cdrom right after installation. Then although I use the community version they have a paid one so if someone wanted they could get official support. like many of my comments its closer to anon sequitor on my things that really helping with yours but good luck.
If your partner is a mac user and wants to feel like they’re using a mac, tbh I think the best option is to use Fedora Kinoite with a mac skin on it.
If they’re a power user and don’t care if things are under construction, they could consider Gershwin Desktop but I really wouldn’t recommend that for a daily driver unless you genuinely have unlimited free time.
Every distro has problems, i don’t really see anything troubling in your post: you’re using a macbook which is very much not a standard linux installation and as always on linux - ymmv.
After the first update malarkey I changed it, but apparently that only lasted to the next update…
You probably “changed it” wrong, iirc some files are automatically generated and those aren’t the ones you want to edit.
The problem isn’t ElementaryOS, it’s the Mac. Sell it and buy a proper Linux laptop. Your problems will be very much diminished.
nah, intel macs (non-T2; i never had a T2 model) tend to work fine with Linux
exhibit A
Macs can be hit or miss as far as slapping Linux on them.
IF OP does decide to sell it for something else, seriously, just get a ThinkPad. they’re all very cheap on the aftermarket, you can score one with great specs for like well under $300 and the thing will last you for years. Plus with their bios setup is so easy to have Multiple OS’ on the thing. don’t have to deal with grub or anything. just hit Return then F12 and you’re off to the races. Best Linux Laptops hands down. I have like 5 of them running different Linux Distros, couple of different BSDs, and one is even running OmniOS which I use as a sort of “mobile server”
@Sturgist@piefed.ca can also look at https://linuxpreloaded.com/ to find a good vendor that actually contributes back to the linux kernel or the linux ecosystem. There are various vendors with different build qualities and support, but pretty much all of them are better than a mac.
If you wanted a hobby you could subscribe to their beta or RC releases and help other Mac owners get a better experience. If you want something closer to “just works” then you’ll want a more mainstream Linux machine.
Something a little more popular like a Fedora distro might have better compatibility tho.
I’m running arch just fine.
I actually started my Linux as a daily driver journey on elementary os. There were some pretty major breakages that caused me to look elsewhere. I forget what they were but it was very frustrating. I landed on pop os because, like elementary, it’s Ubuntu minus some of the garbage. I think pop os is better now than it used to be, and I still daily drive it. It’s been a while since I had any major issue that seemed to be the os itself. Can’t remember the last one actually so it was probably years ago.
I wouldn’t call elementary a stable distro. You should have picked Ubuntu or Mint, they are much better for non technical users and they can find solutions on the web more easily.
In my view, Elementary is for those that want a Apple like look and feel.
This reminds me how comfortable to run NixOS. If any configuration change or upgrade causes any issue, you always have the option to reboot into the previous working version.
I had similar issues with other distros on old MacBooks, unfortunately it’s the locked down nature of their drivers, especially WiFi. I would have continued to use the hardware as it’s good enough for simple use cases but fighting with custom WiFi drivers isn’t my idea of fun. Gave up and got a second hand ThinkPad a year or two ago, no hardware issues since.
She’s decided to just save up and get a new MacBook 🙄
I’ll install something I’m better versed with and use it as a server or something 🤷🏾♂️
Arch worked fine on mine 🤷♂️
Hmm, i had the same experience on a Thinkpad a decade ago with ElementaryOS. It just killed itself after an update a few months in. Seeing that this still is a thing makes me sad. Especially since its a distro which tends to get picked up by Linux newbies.
Exactly. While I was looking around at their support forums I saw mentioned by several users, but without any substantiation, that the dev doesn’t even daily drive it…which is pretty telling if true.
Also really bothers me that there’s a paid version. Seems predatory to present a paid version on the main page when the unpaid is a broken mess.
Elementary is based off Ubuntu and I don’t think they maintain a separate kernel so the issue would likely happen on every other Ubuntu based distribution. Elementary is marketing itself as noob friendly because what differentiates them is their desktop environment which aims for a simplified user experience.
I don’t think this is exactly correct. The distro maintainer is responsible for choosing when and how to roll out/test upstream updates. So if they are doing their job, they would be pumping the brakes on specific kernel updates until they’ve worked out issues with them (or waited for upstream to fix them). So distros based on Ubuntu may or may not experience the specific issues that get rolled out upstream of them. Also, there could’ve been things elementary os was combining with the kernel updates that could’ve caused breakages.
