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Ask Slashdot: What's the Fastest Linux Distro for an Old Macbook 7,1?
Long-time Slashdot reader gr8gatzby writes: I have an old beautiful mint condition white Macbook 7,1 with a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and 5GB RAM. Apple cut off the upgrade path of this model at 10.6.8, while a modern-day version of any browser requires at least 10.9 these days, and as a result my browsing is limited to Chrome version 49.0.2623.112.
So this leaves me with Linux. What is the fastest, most efficient and powerful distro for a Mac of this vintage?
It's been nearly eight years since its release, so leave your best thoughts in the comments. What's the best Linux distro for an old Macbook 7,1?
So this leaves me with Linux. What is the fastest, most efficient and powerful distro for a Mac of this vintage?
It's been nearly eight years since its release, so leave your best thoughts in the comments. What's the best Linux distro for an old Macbook 7,1?
I found arch worked well on very old machines, but even so the main thing is to use a lightweight desktop environment or not. I use FVWM which isn't to everyone's tastes, but I like it on machines of all sizes including fast ones.
But you won't like unity on that machine I expect.
Oh also, replace any spining disks with flash.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The fastest would be something minimal like puppy linux, but I don't think you really want something that ugly on your beloved macbook. Linux Mint Mate Edition will work fine, with a reasonably attractive and conventional UI.
Lubuntu it is. I find that this distro runs just fine od 10+ year old PCs (once-upon-a-time Windows laptops), no reason why it shouldn't run just fine on an old Macbook.
I'm not sure why you think it's "capped" to 10.6 - that's just the version that was current at the release of your Macbook model. It will happily install and run El Capitan (10.11), and that's bound to be a more compatible and pleasant desktop experience than putting anything Linux on it.
Posting AC for obvious reasons :)
2.4ghz with 5GB of RAM is insanely quick, and an insane amount of RAM. it's only the fact that modern OSes are so stuffed with eye candy, adware and freeware that you've been hood-winked into BELIEVING that the OS *is* the computer. the only thing that will make a HUGE difference to speed is if you get yourself a GOOD SSD. by that i mean one with an Intel chipset i.e. not the 3700 series which is made *by* intel but using a shitty consumer-grade controller IC from Marvell. you want an S3500 or basically hunt around for anything that has "Intel Power-loss Protection". see here for full details http://lkcl.net/reports/ssd_an...
the actual OS doesn't techincally matter, none of them will make a blind bit of difference, you have such a fast machine, you might as well pick one that will make your life easiee.
all apps will work perfectly fine as long as you don't do what i do which is try to run qemu, two web browsers, 3D Graphics Editors, videos, IRC, 2D CAD Packages *and* try to compile the linux kernel all at the same time. this tends to bring even a machine with 16GB of 2400mhz DDR4 RAM to its knees. don't do it :) keep an eye on things, but libreoffice and a few tabs open in browsers should be fine.
your main concern is web browsers, which is one application, and you should try to keep the size of the window to the minimum that you can tolerate. i manage fine with chromium running at around 1024x800 and underneath that firefox with 200 tabs open ar around 1024x700 or so (i use a 3000 x 1600 resolution laptop screen).
someone else here suggested fvwm2: i too love it, because the startup time is well under half a second. for everyone else i recommend XFCE as it's based on the older gnome2 infrastructure so does well at auto-detecting drives and so on. the other desktop i love and thoroughly recommend for end-users is Trinity Desktop.
the only other thing i recommend is that you NOT install systemd as it actually slows boot times DOWN (as well as making your life geneerally hell). you can either install debian and then install sysvinit, which will "disable systemd but still leave it hanging around like a bad smell" or you can go the whole hog, add http://angband.pl/deban and actually get rid of it entirely, going back to udisk2, policykit, consolekit and other packages that debian's developers rather foolishly removed.
bottom line is, the threshold for "good enough computing" was crossed many many years ago, and it's only the marketing teams DELIBERATELY making the proprietary OSes do more so that your machine APPEARS so slow that you feel you HAVE to buy a new one... you see where that's going? anyway, welcome to the freedom that comes with being able to choose your own OS, you're one of the few people that actually has control of their computing hardware back, now.
I have a similar issue with an '06-'08 iMac (I can't look now). AppStore won't let me install the latest High Sierra. It says my hardware is incompatible.
I'm stuck on Lion.
You can update the firmware manually, and then the newst versions will install and run just fine. It is entirely artificial.
I use distrowatch.com see what is hot.
MX-Linux [https://mxlinux.org/]
Dedoimedo [dedimedo.com] ranked it #1 XFCE for 2017.
Up to date with Firefox ESR, Thunderbird, LibreOffice
1.2g ISO
Requires CD/DVD [or system that boots USB]
i486 or AMD and above
512 MB Ram
5GB free disk space
UEFI or BIOS
I agree with others who have suggested upgrading the HDD to an SSD. That makes a huge difference even for a machine that may not fully support the fastest SATA speeds. According to this web page (if I have correctly identified the H/W) https://everymac.com/systems/a... this Mac can hold up to 8GB RAM. If it presently has 5 GB, it is presently populated with a 1GB stick and a 4GB stick. I would try to match the 4GB stick and bump the RAM to 8GB.
With this H/W you can reasonably run any Linux distro so the choice comes down to choosing a distro and desktop suitable for a new user. Ubuntu and Mint are both good candidates for easy installation. I would avoid Ubuntu 17.10 as it has a *lot* of new stuff like Wayland by default and a return to Gnome from Unity. 16.04 would be a good choice and it's an LTS version meaning it will be supported for a long time.
For a desktop I would consider XFCE or Mate. Both are fairly functional without being too bloated. Some people like the default Unity desktop on Ubuntu which was originally targeted at netbooks. I cannot comment on KDE because I don't use it but there are those that like it a lot and report that it is not a resource hog. Someone mentioned fvwm2. That was my window manager of choice 20 years ago when I ran Linux on a 486 with 4 MB RAM and a few GB of disk drive. I recommend a full blown modern desktop environment for ease of use for a new user. The nice thing about Linux is that you can install and test drive any of these desktops and choose the one to try from the login screen.
https://everymac.com/systems/a...
Apple officially supports a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, but third-parties have determined that it actually supports 8 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" and 16 GB of RAM running OS X 10.7.5 "Lion" or higher and the latest EFI update.
Pre-Installed MacOS: X 10.6.3
Maximum MacOS: Current
So update EFI, upgrade RAM to 16GB, swap HDD for SSD and install the latest macOS.
Problem solved.
#DeleteFacebook
Yep, it is – I upgraded directly from Snow Leopard to Mavericks. You just need an update to the App Store certificate.
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT205702
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I think you should look for a replacement, not the fastest distro. elementary OS is Linux and looks like macOS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The MacBook 7,1 WILL run High Sierra. This is probably your best bet.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook/specs/macbook-core-2-duo-2.4-white-13-polycarbonate-unibody-mid-2010-specs.html
If you really want to run Linux, you've got enough power to run whatever you want. Kubuntu or KDE Neon would give you a nice balance of functionality and performance. I'm running Kubuntu on a MacBook 3,1 which has the garbage GMA x3100 video and it is running just fine.
The big issue with the MacBook 7,1 is trying to get the proprietary nvidia drivers to work with EFI boot. Otherwise, you are stuck with nouveau, and nouveau sucks.