Hi all! I was wondering if there was anyone who installed Linux Mint on their Non-Retina Intel Silicon Mac (the Mac’s up to/around 2012). I have a 2012 15 Inch Macbook Pro with an i7-3615QM. Between possible driver issues, and the fact that it’s a Mac with a 3rd Generation CPU, I’m not sure if I can get away with using it or if I should just get some cheap Lenovo Laptop. Just looking for some feedback, thank you in advance!
I don’t have any personal experience, but assuming Action Retro’s YouTube videos are somewhat accurate, older x86 Macs seem to work well with modern distros.
You might run into some issues with Thunderbolt, but most of the hardware isn’t that unusual, so there shouldn’t be any major driver problems.
I can’t answer for Mint specifically, but I’m running kubuntu on a similar 2012 MacBook Pro and it runs great for just an old i5 (16 GB ram with an SSD really helps a lot). More importantly, all the Apple hardware is fully supported, right down to the keyboard & screen brightness buttons, volume buttons, etc. Runs way better than macOS ever did.
Works great. Had Linux Mint running on a 2008 Unibody MacBook. If your Msc is a dual graphics model, Linux might even be the only software way to revive it (or ensure it keeps running. The dedicated graphics always break and you can disable them in GRUB). Have Mint running on one of those for my grandparents as well. The only gotcha for Linux on Intel Macs would be the wireless drivers but I know that Mint’s Driver tool will do the work for you nicely. You might just need an ethernet connection for the installation. There are no further incompatibilities that I know of.
Alternatively, if you’d rather run macOS on a Mac: Open Core Legacy Patcher is a tool born out of the hackintosh community that allows you to run current macOS versions on unsupported Macs fairly well. The same 2008 Unibody Macbook did a decent job running macOS Ventura.
Only recommendation in either case would be to throw in a cheap SSD. The old non Retina Macs are easily upgradeable and not running on spinning rust can make the system much more responsive, no matter which OS you’re running. And if you’re already in there, the RAM is also easily upgradeable and 8GB get you a lot farther than 4GB. And DDR3 SODIMMs are also getting ridiculously cheap.
