> For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available
What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.
I’m not a fan of VMs for older machines since they tend to perform poorly. And 4GB RAM wouldn’t be adequate for that. I’d suggest dual booting with a separate partition for Linux. You can also choose distros that have a lower hardware requirement and perform better on older machines (my first choice is Xubuntu, but there are others too).
Make sure you still retain the macOS partition and installation (after resizing it down). There are tools like reFind [1] that can help you manage dual booting better (do read the extensive documentation and refer to it when needed).
It goes without saying that you should have a full disk backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! before you venture into these.
The experience on Linux may not be great out of the box (depending on your exact hardware). So I’d also suggest budgeting some time to iron out kinks and make it better.
This is the way to go. But if you like a polished OS i would recommend Mint Cinnamon edition. Installed the Xfce version on my mothers ancient (T61 i think) Thinkpad, and the idiosyncracies were quiet annoying. Replaced it with the Cinnamon version which ran just fine.
On my Macbook Pro, I found Linux used more energy running directly, than running inside a VM (tested with VMware Fusion).
So I'm happy running Linux in a VM.
This might be due to the dual GPUs (on higher end MBPs), I didn't check further after the initial battery test.
It's nicer anyway, because of the ability to run MacOS and Linux at the same time, and four-finger swipe between their desktops. That way I get the nicer GUI of MacOS, consistently good touchpad (including in Linux), and Linux for my command line dev needs, and can use utilities for either that aren't available on the other.
On an old Macbook Air, Linux might us less energy running directly rather than VM. To be sure you'd have to try both.
4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You might need to stick with older versions of whatever you decide to use. I would pick one of the Linux distros that is explicitly for old machines and small memory usage.
Look into tuning TLP with a GUI if you plan on running Linux on your laptop and power usage is an issue.
> 4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)
You can use cgroups to limit the amount of memory an application can use. I use it to limit Firefox's memory usage on a machine with much more memory than that.
MacBookPro have a driver bug that makes the dGPU run at max power (20W) whenever it is on (which is always forced whenever an external monitor is connected). So that's not why Linux uses more energy. More likely Mac is better at turning down idle services like in Safari
For good, stable GUI install ChromeOS and then for CLI crostini or crosh/crouton do decent job as they are really just debian.. Neverware builds should work out of the box for MacAir.
I am using this for more then 3 years on Macs now and never considered going back to MacOS disaster.
Will you consider going back after Google makes it so that you cannot use Ublock Origin or similar level of adblocking in Chrome or is there some way to install a different browser on ChromeOS I don't know about?
My office gives (almost) everyone a 2017 Macbook Air with dual core i5-5350U with 8Gb Ram and 128Gb ssd's. I installed Fedora last year October and been using it ever since.
Volume keys, brightness keys, touchpad & keyboard backlit all works perfect. Only problem is the kernel doesn't support the specific wifi module (broadcom) out of the box, so I installed Fedora via usb-lan dongle (netinstall), which the company also provides anyway. After installation you can install the broadcom modules yourself and it just work. Strange enough the bluetooth works out of the box.
I didn't dualboot or mess with any of that, just wiped the ssd clean and made partitions with the lvm automatic option in the Fedora installer.
Next time I will definitely install Fedora + Xfce instead of Gnome, since I'm using this combination on a another low spec machine and it's great. So maybe give the xfce spin a try.
Linux runs alright on old (pre-2016) MacBooks (Air/Pro). This is in contrast to the MacBooks in the era when they started introducing the touch bar, secure enclave, and APFS. A word of caution: don't multi-boot together with macOS with Linux on your internal drive (Linux on an external drive is fine if double booting).
What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.