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Is it possible to install ubuntu or another linux distro on a 2014 macbook pro?

A friend wants to gift me an old macbook pro he no longer uses. Specs follow:

MacBook Pro, Core i5, 2.8 GHz (I5-4308U), model A1502 (EMC 2875), Retina Mid-2014 13", MacBookPro11,1, RAM 8 GB, VRAM 1.5 GB, Storage 512 GB SSD

Out of principle I don’t use anything made by that brand and the only way I see myself using the hardware is if I can nuke the software and install any linux distro, ubuntu is the distro I know best.

Can it be done?

Any drawbacks?

It’s a model with a screwed aluminum case, meaning I cannot unplug the battery when I don’t need it. How long does it last?

Alternatively, what could I use this notebook for? Is there anything apple does better than linux that deserves I don’t nuke it?

kureta ,

I am running arch on a 2011 MacBook pro. so, probably. Even if you don’t plan on using arch, the wiki has all the info to get you started.

harsh3466 ,

Checking in with a 2014 27” iMac. It’s still running the original 3TB Fusion Drive, and I stuffed 32gb ram in there too.

I’ve been doing a bit of distro hopping with it. Have run Ubuntu and Linux Mint with no issues and currently running the latest Kde Neon beautifully.

HexagonSun , (edited )

Others here with old Macs seem to have had a much smoother run than me!

You can absolutely run Linux like a champ on that machine, but for reasons I’m not advanced enough to know/understand I’ve struggled with even booting the live USB for multiple distros on my Mid-2012 15" Retina. Maybe it’s the version of the hybrid Intel/Nvidia graphics on the model, I can’t really say.

I’m currently writing this from Linux Mint on said Mac, and all is well; but I’ve experienced the following:

  • OpenSuse installer couldn’t even be seen at startup manager
  • MX Linux would freeze during boot to the installer
  • Elementary OS wouldn’t boot following install
  • Pop! OS installed the wrong Nvidia driver for the computer, and with the open source drivers stopped booting after running a few updates
  • Nitrux would freeze during boot to the installer
  • Ubuntu stopped booting a few days in after an update
  • Debian might have worked but wouldn’t detect my trackpad, wifi or USB ethernet adaptor so I couldn’t properly get it installed
  • Manjaro worked for a while but eventually failed after an update
  • ArcoLinux wouldn’t wake from sleep running the live USB

I totally recommend Linux Mint overall. I’ve decided I like Cinnamon best, “it just works” far more than anything else I’ve tried. I consider it the closest to macOS in terms of being thought about from every angle and set up and ready to go as a beginner or as a more advanced user.

LeFantome ,

Linux fan here. I run Linux on and old 2008 iMac, a 2009 MacBook Pro, a 2012 MacBook Pro, and a 2017 MacBook Pro. EndeavourOS mostly.

Linux works amazingly on this hardware. Old Apple stuff is great gear and still looks pretty good too.

I have upgraded RAM and storage as much as possible which makes a huge difference. I actually found the 2009 unit sitting on the intake shelf at my local recycling centre. It needed a new battery but has been awesome. I keep it downstairs at home as my other computers are upstairs. I take it with me on trips where I would worry about wrecking a computer ( camping road trips for example ). I can access my Proxmox server to hit a few remote desktops and the beautiful screen and awesome keyboard make it a joy to use.

Where is macOS bette? If we are being honest, any serious macOS user will have accumulated use cases that are not as well met by Linux. Media related especially like photo and video editing. I cannot even find programs like “subler” for Linux which you would think Linux would have. Niche proprietary tools as more common on macOS. So even reading a PDF signed with a certificate can be annoying on Linux ( without Adobe Acrobat or Reader ).

If you are a developer, I would argue Linux is better.

I am a Linux user though so I am the opposite. If you give me a machine running macOS, I want to get Linux on it. For me, Linux is so much better and 10 minutes on a Mac and I will be frustrated with what it cannot do.

Even for a Mac user, Mac hardware becomes much less usable after it falls of support for thee latest macOS as so many apps will quickly become incompatible after. As I run Arch on my 2009 Mac, it has all the software I use totally up-to-date and current with the latest releases available. You just cannot compete with Linux for that.

BananaTrifleViolin ,

If it’s free gift then yes, Linux will work but with a few compromises. Mainly driver support for Apple’s proprietary hardware can be patchy out of the box and need manually fixing. Mainly peripherals like cameras (which may not work at all) and thunderbolt connectors (thunderbolt is supported but can need problem solving and may work better with different distros by default). The WiFi drivers are the classic issue - fixable but obviously painful to do offline.

But if you’re paying beware those limitations.

The good thing is it’s a Core i5 so you can use any AMD64 distribution and software (rather than the ARM distros needed for the proprietary apple chips; although on a quick search it seems those chips are now well supported by Linux distros).

Best approach may be to find a video/tutorial for your specific machine, and pick a distro they use. I imagine that’d be an Ubuntu derivative just due to shear popularity. But if you’re then feeling adventurous you could try and get your preferred distro set up - just may need to know how to fix drivers.

I personally wouldn’t stick with Mac OS - it’s notorious for slowing down older systems as the focus is on the new. A 10 year old laptop will likely run better with a well set up Linux distro.

Jtskywalker ,

Debian on a base model 2013 MacBook air checking in. Runs better than it ever did on Mac OS. Battery life is still fine. I did have to use proprietary drivers for some things (wifi and webcam) but other than that it was pretty much plug and play.

Lots of replacement parts are on ebay for cheap, and there are a lot of repair tutorials on YouTube (and piped.video) I replaced keyboard and trackpad cheaply, and some of the internal cables.

As far as drawbacks, if you have to replace the storage or or logic board, those are expensive. I have a sound issue which I haven’t been able to fix and from searching around it looks like a logic board would be required. Bluetooth headphones work fine though so I’m just dealing with it.

Dariusmiles2123 ,

Linux is the best thing to revive an old beast. I used on my wife 2012 MacBook Pro with upgraded SSD and Ram and it’s now a monster.

I only had to enable RPM fusion for WiFi to work, otherwise everything worked perfectly out of the box.

vestmoria OP ,

would you write what flavor you use?

Dariusmiles2123 ,

Fedora Workstation with Gnome. Forgot to mention it 😇

onlinepersona ,

github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/tree/…/14-1 if you’re a NixOS user

olympicyes ,

Sean from Action Retro on YouTube has videos demonstrating how to set this up. Highly recommended!

requiem , (edited )

Running PopOS on a 2012 Macbook Air and Fedora on a 2015 Macbook Pro.

Potential common pitfall used to be having to add the Broadcom wifi drivers separately - I had to add them manually for PopOS but Fedora worked out of the box. Honestly PopOS + Wayland totally saved the old little Air and it’s a fantastic machine to use.

You may have to start using some free third-party tools for built-in features that work on the Mac.

I replaced iCloud keychain with BitWarden for password management. You can use Beeper for iMessage - it’s one of the few things to actually support it. iCloud Drive can be accessed via rclone I think but it might be terminal only - mind if you can get it to work via terminal then you can mount it as a folder. You can use Cider as an Apple Music client. I haven’t yet looked into Calendar and Contacts sync with iCloud but you can always export those and import in your software of choice on Linux.

danielfgom ,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian Edition installs very nicely on that machine and is one of the better working distros for apple hardware. It should auto detect the WiFi driver which is normally the pain point because it uses broadcom and the drivers are reverse engineered.

I don’t think thunderbolt works, the SD card reader might not work and the video camera definitely won’t work. Plus on standby the battery will drain flat.

These are the issues I had on my 2015 MacBook Pro before it died. I need to take it to apple for diagnosis but don’t have the money right now.

However I run Linux Mint Debian Edition on a 2014 Mac Mini and it’s ok

Generally Apple hardware is a pain with Linux. You get better results with pc hardware - better Harare compatibility and less issues

sgibson5150 , (edited )

Recently I followed this guide on my late 2013 retina MBP and ended up with a fully working system. Used the latest Ubuntu [edit: 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish] at the time. No hiccups that I recall. I’m not a Linux expert but I am familiar with installing and configuring Debian and Ubuntu. YMMV.

After letting the poor thing gather dust for several years, now I use it most every day.

medium.com/…/installing-ubuntu-18-04-01-lts-on-la…

Edit 2024-03-08 to clarify the release that I used

bloodfart ,

It’s works fine with lots of different Linux. There’s another person a week or so ago who asked just this very question. The battery lifetime is directly correlated to how many times it’s been drained and recharged, not age.

If you don’t already have a mac, I’d keep a version of macos on there. It’s useful for running native applications and you can use it to download and create boot media for old versions of the operating system to fix other macs you stumble across.

A very neat thing for multibooting different versions of macos that support the apfs file system is that they can be volumes contained inside an apfs partition. That means that if your new version and old version are each 10gb then your apfs partition only has 20gb used and both the versions will see all the free space and be able to use it.

One thing that macos inarguably does better than linux or windows is color management.

I’m speaking as a 25 year linux user: at least take the chance to learn macos. It’s a useful skill to have and it’s good operating system especially on the target hardware.

Jennykichu ,
@Jennykichu@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yes, and with minor effort you can even make it look nearly identical to MacOS: github.com/vinceliuice/WhiteSur-gtk-theme

01189998819991197253 , (edited )
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

I have a 2010 running Mint LMDE, and it runs so much better than the Mac os x that it had did. The i5 is an Intel CPU, so it should be fully possible. Download a live image and boot from it. Test it out. If it works as expected, I stall. The 2010 has a screw off bottom, so I switched out the drive to preserve the original OS X, since the installation may not be available for much longer.

Edit: sorry I didn’t answer the “Is there anything apple does better than linux that deserves I don’t nuke it?” question. I like to answer these types of posts as impartial as possible. Since I don’t actually like Mac OS X’s UI and UX, I didn’t feel I could do that. I can only recommend that you as I did, and preserve the original drive if possible, so you can go back to Mac OS X if you want.

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