Linux Distro for Running on a Macbook for Work

Hey guys, I have a macbook pro 2019 (intel architecture) that my company gave me for work (I do software development). They allow me to work on linux if I want to, and recent developments at the company have made me more inclined.

I spent a lot of time on Arch Linux on my personal computer a while back, and I love the customizability of the system, the user repo, and the package manager, but I definitely had some issues with stability from time to time.

Essentially I want something customizable, specifically where I have the freedom to mess with things like my window manager and compositor if I want to. I used to use i3 and I don’t know if that’s the move any more with recent developments in wayland.

So to end my meandering:

  1. I’m hoping for some recommendations on distros
  2. Some information about HiDPI displays and utilizing multiple displays with different DPIs
  3. Some recommendations on WMs, especially tiling ones
GBU_28,

Honestly I just run macos on my company provided machine.

Work is work and i leave hobby level customization for my off hours.

I’ve known a few peers who customized their work systems to the wazoo then ran into some setup issues and they couldnt work with local dev kits for the company software. So make sure all tools the company expects you to use locally will work in your preferred setup.

danielfgom,
@danielfgom@lemmy.world avatar

Mint ran fine in my 2015 MacBook pro and I’m running Linux Mint Debian Edition on my Mac Mini 2014.

It does use X11 not Wayland but everything worked fine, except the webcam and possibly the SD card reader, which is normal on Mac’s running anything other than macos

If you think you’ll be doing zoom calls etc, leave it running macos and just run Linux in a VM.

DetachablePianist,

I run kubuntu on a 2012 Intel i5 MBP and it runs like a champ. everything works perfectly, including mic, speakers, webcam… even minor details like the hardware buttons to turn brightness and volume up/down worked straight out of the box with no fuss.

signor,

Can’t go wrong with fedora, just change from Wayland to xorg with the cogwheel at login.

cyborganism,

Elementary OS would look right at home on a Mac.

Certainity45,

Try T2: t2sde.org

I have no experience with it but I bet it should work nicely since meant for T2 Macbooks. The project leader has a Youtube channel (mostly livestreams): www.youtube.com/

onlinepersona,

@Rade0nfighter gave you a good link. I had the displeasure of having a MBP for work too and was able to put linux on it following that guide. You’ll be able to run pretty much any distro nowadays on it, but there’s a good chance not all hardware will work. Not sure I ever got the audio to work, nor the camera. But with an external for both, that was no problem.

I think back then I ran debian (or was it mint? can’t remember) with a newer kernel, opensuse tumbleweed, and even tried nixos (which didn’t work).

No idea where you’re working, but I second @markstos, try and get them to get you a laptop that supports linux out of the box (OOTB). If they’re paying for macs, they should be able to get you really good linux laptop. My recommendation if you’re in Europe: get yourself a tuxedo computer e.g TUXEDO Pulse 14 - Gen3 - AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, 32GB RAM, 3k display, max 11 hours battery life : 1300€ - and customizable

They even have some that can go up to 96GB RAM for 2.1k€! Dunno how much you’d have to pay for a mac with that kind of RAM.

Edit: Just had to look it up and Macbook Pros friggin start at 3k€! What in the everliving fuck??? And to have 96GB of RAM you need to shell out 5k! Bro, ask them to get you a linux laptop. They’d be saving money and you wouldn’t waste time trying to make linux work on a piece of shit mac from 5 years ago.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

mandos,

You guys both make good points, if I can, I will absolutely argue for the upgrade if I can. I’ve been using the mac with MacOS for a while now, so they’ll probably argue it’s not a necessity since I’m still not really seeing performance issues on it yet, but I may be able to try.

Pantherina,

It may not work at all as they have fairly closed down hardware. Also you may not get firmware updates which is a big security issue.

markstos,

That laptop is 5 years ago old. Business policies normally require replacing laptops at age.

Were you given the laptop because someone else got a new one? I would ask for a new or at least newer model.

Asahi/Fedora Linux is apparently mostly working on Apple Silicon. I’m using it on a Mac Mini as a server without problems.

mandos,

I’m still a ways out for an upgrade unfortunately. We generally use them until they’re no longer usable for what we do. My development team is kind of the exception at our company, since we’re the only mac users there aren’t as many standard policies for our laptops yet

Rade0nfighter,

I’ve had some luck with Ubuntu, I’ve made my “notes” public in case it’s of use to you!

I’d started with bootcamp (windows) to add another bootloader option then went from there. Most of my docs go from there.

https://github.com/Rade0nFighter/macbuntu

mandos,

Thank you! I’ll check this out

GravitySpoiled,

You don’t have to use arch if you like the package manager or repo. You can use distrobox on any distro and use arch within it. It’s like a light weight vm.

You can use i3 on any distro.

Fedora is always a solid choice whether the traditional or atomic variant.

If you want to go on an endeavour, try the window manager niri, it’s awesome to have an infinite page of apps.

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