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Is it possible to replace the wifi card on a Macbook pro 11,2 (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)? If so, are there any compatible wifi cards with open source drivers for Linux?

I am running Linux on my macbook pro and it has a Broadcom BCM4360 wifi card. Problem is that the driver for it is proprietary (or more accurately, mostly proprietary with some of the source code available), quite outdated, and I couldn’t get it to work with Linux kernel v6.9.5.

I am running Gentoo Linux on my macbook with a custom kernel. I previously had wifi working, but then I reinstalled Gentoo (because I wanted to do full disk encryption), copied over the kernel config file from my previous install (which I knew had working wifi), migrated it to a newer kernel version (plus added support for full disk encryption) and now the wifi drivers won’t even compile.

So, I was thinking of replacing the current wifi card with something that has modern and open-source drivers for it. Is it possible to do that on a Macbook pro 11,2 (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)? If so, are there any compatible wifi cards with open source drivers for Linux?

7uWqKj ,

Replace? MacBook? Er, I‘m afraid I’ve got to tell you something …

RockyC ,

I got tired of fooling around with mine and just plugged in a Panda USB Wi-Fi adapter. It’s ugly, but reliable.

boredsquirrel ,

An alternative always is to use the LTS kernel, currently 6.6

That one may break less often.

rimu ,
@rimu@piefed.social avatar

I had a terrible time getting wifi working on my Macbook Pro from about the same year. 2012, I think. It semi-worked but was horrifically unreliable and slow.

In the end I just got a tiny USB wifi dongle and plugged it in, rather than using the internal wifi card.

TheBigBrother ,

How about an USB WiFi adapter?

bloodfart ,

It’s just mini pcie. As far as I know there isn’t any whitelisting.

They’re cheap little things, buy one with Linux support and see if it works!

boredsquirrel ,

Intel AX200 is pretty known

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

ifixit.com/…/MacBook_Pro_15"

I didn’t see a specific guide, but you may see something if you go through them or the teardowns.

phcorcoran , (edited )

I worked on repairing Macs during that period and I suspect that no wifi card except this specific one would fit in the relevant slot of the machine.

They weren’t standard formats as far as I know and couldn’t be used across models because the shape of the actual card was never the same. It’s possible the connectors didn’t change though, or that a third party manufacturer made new cards specifically for that model, although that seems unlikely.

Another commenter (u/bloodfart) wrote that the connector was a standard mini pcie connector; I can’t confirm but that’s plausible and would mean it’s a lot more likely that an upgrade may be possible

One note of caution, it was really easy for an uninitiated repair person to sever the antenna wire from its connector when trying to disconnect or reconnect them, the cables are quite thin

boonhet ,

Not just an uninitiated person. I had done thousands and still occasionally severed them.

I believe in this model the antenna is replacable though?

phcorcoran ,

We had to replace the entire screen assembly for that at the time but I’m sure it’s possible to do something less drastic if you are just working on your own machine

boonhet ,

Ah might be right. I believe the one side hinge replacement netted you a new display cable, not a new antenna now that I think of it.

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