My grandma just gave me her old MacBook Pro (MacBookPro11,1 A1502) and, after removing a spicy pillow, air dusting everything, and copying off her old photos, I’m ready to do a clean install.

I would like to dual-boot either Linux or BSD (which will be my main partition) alongside macOS (which will be handy for testing and for use with certain peripherals; either Mavericks, High Sierra, or Big Sur).

I am already well-versed in unix-like operating systems, so I’ll only start having trouble if I try to use a source-based distro (e.g. Gentoo, Source Mage, LFS, etc.)

Can I have some recommendations for the Linux and the macOS version, please?

  • @danielfgomEnglish
    12•10 months ago

    I run Linux Mint Debian Edition on my 2014 Mac Mini and it’s works really well. Should be the same on the MacBook. Or regular Mint.

    I’ve run Mint on my 2015 MacBook Pro and it worked very well.

    Either way I recommend a slow release distro because if you use a rolling distro the WiFi will stop working with every kernel update … It takes a few days before they update the Broadcom reverse driver to work with the newer kernel.

    That’s why I’m on Linux Mint Debian Edition - I don’t need the latest kernel nor my WiFi breaking every other week. Linux Mint Debian Edition is stable and just works.