[HN Gopher] Reviving decade-old Macs with antiX and MX Linux (2022)
___________________________________________________________________
Reviving decade-old Macs with antiX and MX Linux (2022)
Author : indigodaddy
Score : 183 points
Date : 2023-12-08 04:59 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sts10.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (sts10.github.io)
| johnklos wrote:
| Or, the MacBook and MacBook Air can run newer macOS using
| OpenCore Legacy:
|
| https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/MODELS.ht...
|
| The MacBook can run Catalina with full graphics support, and the
| MacBook Air can run anything all the way up to the latest Sonoma.
|
| The iMac still run Lion with updated browsers / SSL certs that'll
| let it be used for simple tasks like watching YouTube.
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| One or two years ago, I have tried to run a recent macOS on a
| Macbook air 11" from 2011, 4GB of ram, it was just unbearable,
| any actions would take seconds, I wonder if it is still
| problematic.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Personally I think they run really well on modern OS, I've
| got Sonoma running well on my 2012 and 2013 MBPs.
| Joeri wrote:
| 8 GB RAM is the baseline for modern macOS. It really doesn't
| like being forced to do with less, even if the 4 gb macbooks
| are not that old (4 gb airs were sold until 2016).
|
| People keep nagging apple to up the baseline RAM from 8 to 12
| or 16 on the new machines, but given how the 4 to 8 jump
| played out it would probably quickly make that vast sea of
| soldered 8 gb machines incapable of running newer macOS
| versions well.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Depends which version you tried to run, the MacBooks without
| metal graphics are really bad on modern OSes, but they have
| made a lot of progress with the patches.
| pndy wrote:
| For my macbook pro 13" late 2011 I've pick manjaro with gnome
| and with OpenCore Legacy Patcher I managed to squeeze macos
| 13.5 on in.
|
| While manjaro makes the machine relatively useful for the
| current day - for really simple tasks that is, the 13.5 misses
| much especially with low amount of ram. But worse thing is that
| this device comes with Intel HD Graphics 3000 and some stuff
| just simply won't load like Maps because this GPU isn't
| supported by Metal API.
|
| In the past I tried Lubuntu on eMac G4 with 800mhz PPC - it was
| a rather painful experience. So I replaced it with 10.4 and
| with help of Macintosh Garden slapped additionally os 9.2.2 for
| for some dualboot retro fun
| realPtolemy wrote:
| I'm running Manjaro on a late 2012 MacBook Pro, it's running
| flawlessly.
|
| The only initial issue I had was that I had to configurate
| the broadcom WiFi driver manually. Super easy after some
| googling for the more technically interested person... But
| nothing I would expect the general person to solve without
| frustration.
|
| 8gb RAM, 125gb SSD. 1xBattery replacement.
|
| It does not run IDE's like ST32 (based on Eclipse) and
| OneNote via Firefox smoothly simultaneously. But everything
| else so far has worked flawlessly. I use it every day and
| have done so since the beginning of this fall.
|
| Edit: Call me a script kid all you want, for this particular
| laptop it's just more convenient for me to run Manjaro rather
| than Arch right of the bat. But I guess I could eventually
| set up a shared partition for storage and an individual
| partition for each OS.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Same here with my recent (free!) acquisition, a mid-2012
| unibody Pro, when I installed Solus on it. However, when I
| booted it with MX initially, it automagically set up the
| wifi driver.
| greggsy wrote:
| Lack of wifi support for any given distro I'm testing out
| is an instant rollback for me. I just don't have the time
| or patience anymore. It has _always_ been a problem.
| pndy wrote:
| Now that you mention it, I do recall issues with the WiFi
| on my model too. IIRC after one of bigger releases I had to
| manually install some driver package from AUR because
| existing driver was for whatever reasons removed.
| winrid wrote:
| Interesting, I run Webstorm for larger JS projects on
| Monterey on my 2012 Air. 4gb of ram w/ SSD. Little slow to
| start but I have fixed plenty of production bugs on the go
| with that thing before I retired it last year and got an X1
| Carbon :)
| justinclift wrote:
| > The iMac still run Lion ...
|
| Pity about the lack of security updates in the intervening
| years.
| geon wrote:
| Or just run an era-appropriate macos.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Or, the MacBook and MacBook Air can run newer macOS using
| OpenCore Legacy:_
|
| This project is _amazing_. I just installed Ventura on an Apple
| Mac mini "Core i7" 2.7 (Mid-2011, "Macmini5,2"). The process
| went smoothly once I figured out that I needed another old
| Intel Mac to create the USB boot volume for an even older Intel
| Mac.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| OpenCore also simplifies running Linux on the Apple EFI 1.1
| environment.
|
| https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Multiboot/oc/linux.html#...
|
| It's such a cool project.
| userbinator wrote:
| Those are actually slightly newer than my "daily driver".
|
| If you take care to avoid the "modern" bloated crap, or
| notoriously intensive like new games, or now AI-related stuff, a
| decade-old computer is absolutely more than enough computing
| power for a lot of things.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Very true. My daily driver at the moment is a Latitude from
| like 2011 or so. It already had an SSD, I just needed to
| upgrade the ram to 8gb. I can browse the web, watch movies and
| can play older games (including csgo before they upgraded to
| cs2).
|
| Some stuff sucks, YouTube is awfully resource intensive as are
| some other sites like Facebook, but since I mostly write it's
| acceptable for daily use. Thing sure does get hot though.
| tommica wrote:
| Clean it?
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| It's not that. I've taken it apart numerous times and
| cleaned out any dust I see. There's no clogging or anything
| going on.
|
| Maybe it needs more thermal paste, but honestly whenever
| I've tried that in the past on older laptops it made no
| difference.
|
| Not sure what else it could be. Besides, it still works
| fine, just hear the fan whirring up pretty often.
| Sakos wrote:
| What CPU is it?
|
| My suggestions: Have you checked with Throttlestop if
| it's being throttled for any reason? Have you tried
| setting your power option to performance or checking the
| energy options for the cooling strategy and max
| clockspeed allowed?
|
| Based on what you've written, I think it's _very_ likely
| that the heat pipes (if any) need to be replaced since
| the coolant inside has probably evaporated and escaped.
| As it 's a Dell, replacement parts should be easy to get.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| It's a core i5.
|
| I think I set some option in the bios to limit CPU
| usage/speed for battery life or something hoping it would
| run cooler, but whatever I changed never made a
| difference and it's been a long time since I've looked in
| the bios.
|
| I hadn't heard of throttlestop, just grabbed it to run.
| So CPU is specifically a Core i5-2540m
|
| The 4 cores are all between 66c and 68c alternating, and
| it says max is between 76c and 78c.
|
| 'Disable turbo' is shown as checked, so is 'BD PROCHOT',
| SpeedStep and 'C1E'. 'High Performance' is not checked.
|
| When you say heat pipes, would that be referring to the
| copper colored metal over the CPU and GPU, what I had
| been calling the heatsink? I had not realized they had
| coolant in them at all. I've never replaced that, but I'm
| comfortable enough changing CPUs and such so I'm not
| worried about doing so.
|
| If that's what I have to replace I may look on ebay and
| do so, would indeed be nice to have it running less hot,
| and also get rid of my probably irrational fear that the
| heat might make the battery explode.
| Sakos wrote:
| I had no idea either until fairly recently.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe I repaired a
| laptop where replacing the paste didn't help, but
| replacing the pipes (or rather the heatsink assembly,
| which they're a part of) did wonders.
|
| If you're already comfortable with taking it apart, it's
| trivial to replace. I think it's your best bet. You might
| even be able to get it directly from Dell since they also
| sell replacement parts.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| I may look at doing so, thanks for the tip! TIL!
|
| For such an old laptop I'm not sure if I want to keep
| spending money on it, $15 to upgrade the ram, $10 for a
| new keyboard after I broke keys from taking them off to
| clean them, $25 for a new battery etc.
|
| Even though it runs very hot it does seem to work ok, and
| I'm hoping to just buy a brand new $100 or so machine
| hopefully in the first quarter of next year, but we will
| see. I still may end up doing so though.
|
| I think I would have to try and buy from Dell directly,
| as on ebay all the heat sinks were preowned, and may be
| no better than the one I already have.
| type0 wrote:
| > heat pipes (if any) need to be replaced since the
| coolant inside has probably evaporated and escaped. As
| it's a Dell, replacement parts should be easy to get.
|
| Was my initial guess as well, though it's hardly worth
| replacing unless wanting to keep it for sentimental
| reasons
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Sounds like my Latitude e6220 - running TLP and thermald will
| help with the overheating. It's a great little machine,
| unfortunately the screen lets it down.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| What is TLP? I have Windows on it at the moment as I used
| to play counter-strike on it, and honestly it doesn't
| matter to me which OS I use at the moment. I prefer Linux,
| but haven't put in the work to switch everything over since
| I need to do work on it, so no thermald for me.
|
| Agree it's a pretty solid machine. Bought it for $10
| secondhand in 2016 and it's still going strong.
| unwind wrote:
| Probably this [1], software for optimizing Linux power
| usage.
|
| [1]: https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Yes, that's it.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| you can use yt-dlp and mpv to watch youtube vids. Still need
| to find the URL yourself but you don't need their website to
| watch it.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Oh yeah I often do. Depends how youtube is acting in my
| browser at the time, which tends to depend on how many
| other tabs I have open.
|
| But yeah I often just open a terminal and download the
| video.
| btdmaster wrote:
| Sometimes a half-solution will do, like Invidious or
| Piped.
|
| [0] https://invidious.io/
|
| [1] https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| Interesting links, thank you. I think I may have them in
| a text file somewhere, planning on setting them up
| eventually, as well as other services like various
| decentralized search instances and such, but I just never
| got around to them.
|
| I've installed the extension to redirect videos to a
| piped instance and that looks like it's going to work
| pretty well, so thanks!
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >If you take care to avoid the "modern" bloated crap, or
| notoriously intensive like new games, or now AI-related stuff,
| a decade-old computer is absolutely more than enough computing
| power for a lot of things.
|
| Most likely your phone is more powerful than those old
| computers. Why not just hook it into an external monitor and
| use it?
| all2 wrote:
| Samsung DEX was exactly this. When I bought a Pad 6 it came
| with Dex bundled and it queued quite nicely as a simple
| Linux-ish desktop environment.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| DeX still exists! I think the lack of USB monitors and
| dongles in the real world makes it so that very few people
| use it, but if you've got a higher end Samsung device andd
| access to a dongle, more people should definitely give it a
| go.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I think the lack of USB monitors and dongles in the
| real world makes it so that very few people use it_
|
| You don't need USB monitors, there are plenty of cheap
| USB-C to DMI/DP dongles and adapters. If you already have
| a USB-C dock for your laptop, then the same one can be
| used for the DEX. The reason it's not more wildly used
| it's poor marketing and low consumer interest as the PC
| usage has been on the steady decline.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Perhaps, but those adapters often lack USB ports in my
| experience. USB-C docks also aren't always reliable,
| because many of them use the accursed DisplayLink
| protocol to do video.
|
| I think the general consumer just isn't aware that this
| is an option. Perhaps Samsung should offer free dongles
| with their flagship phones to build a market, because
| it's a real shame people don't know about DeX.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Perhaps Samsung should offer free dongles with their
| flagship phones to build a market, because it's a real
| shame people don't know about DeX._
|
| Most casual average people at home don't even have PCs
| with monitors anymore these days. Most people who aren't
| on their computer all day, just have a solo laptop with
| no other peripherals making DEX pretty useless to the
| average joe
| deniska wrote:
| Because they come with not-really-multitasking OSes, with
| restricted access to file system and limited selection of
| software.
| krylon wrote:
| I have a soft spot for old hardware. And a 10-12 year old
| machine is able to play 1080p video smoothly (unless it was a
| low-end machine at the time), which makes it fine for 90+
| percent of my needs. Plus, these older machines can be
| obtained very cheaply. With a bit of luck for free, if you
| offer to save friends and relatives the effort to dispose of
| them properly.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Most likely your phone is more powerful than those old
| computers. Why not just hook it into an external monitor and
| use it?
|
| Phones are content consumption devices. Maybe he wants to do
| something beyond watching tiktok.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| App support for tools like IDEs may be lacking (browser
| based debugging only, but there are cloud based versions of
| VS Code you can use) but I could do most desktop tasks on
| Samsung Dex. A USB C monitor with two USB ports for mouse
| and keyboard would be enough for many people.
|
| It's unfortunate that Samsung abandoned its tests running a
| fully fledged Ubuntu when hooked upmto a monitor.
| nottorp wrote:
| > A USB C monitor with two USB ports for mouse and
| keyboard would be enough for many people.
|
| Yeah, sadly there are entry level laptops cheaper than a
| phone or said monitor plus a keyboard and mouse. I said
| "or" not "and".
|
| Plus you know, people cursing Apple for making Mac OS
| look more like iOS. I don't think the great convergence
| will happen any time soon.
|
| > browser based debugging only, but there are cloud based
| versions of VS Code you can use
|
| So nothing works offline.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > Yeah, sadly there are entry level laptops cheaper than
| a phone or said monitor plus a keyboard and mouse
|
| Many people already have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard
| lying around. They'll also have a phone already. Plus,
| there are very cheap docks where you can just slide your
| phone into a laptop shell, priced similarly to the worst
| and most awful Chromebooks imaginable.
|
| > So nothing works offline.
|
| You can run a vscode server on your phone
| (https://github.com/gitpod-io/openvscode-
| server/releases). What's lacking is the VSCode GUI, so
| pointing a browser at http://[::1]:8080/ will work just
| fine.
| greggsy wrote:
| I've always liked the idea of accessing a remote desktop
| running on your phone from a browser in any device on the
| network. You could use some sort of QR code to
| authenticate.
| greggsy wrote:
| Many people expect a 'daily driver' to run Teams, Outlook and a
| browser with a couple of tabs running client side apps.
|
| There is absolutely a lot of bloat out there, including Office
| apps, but that's just the landscape these days. People get used
| to running a lot of stuff when they have lots of resources, and
| will start closing apps once they start to see some performance
| issues, but there doesn't seem to be many apps outside of the
| Linux ecosystem that promote a lightweight ethos, and even
| fewer sites are built like HN.
| jlokier wrote:
| My daily driver is over 10 years old, from 2013. Still going
| remarkably well.
|
| It runs Teams and Zoom just fine. I have thousands of browser
| tabs. I often use the common office apps; sometimes
| LibreOffice and Microsoft Office are open at the same time.
| It is always running Firefox, Telegram, Discord, Emacs and a
| Linux VM. YouTube often, no problems. And many sw dev tools.
|
| When connected, it drives dual 27 inch monitors, but usually
| I take it out with me. The 10 year old battery still lasts a
| few hours and has never been replaced. It outlasted the brand
| new Dell I was given for a contract last year.
|
| As well as MacOS it runs Linux in a VM, full screen so I can
| four-finger swipe between different OS desktops. I use the
| Linux desktop mainly for Inkscape in GNOME and other scripted
| image manipulations. In practice for most work I prefer to
| SSH from MacOS to Linux, to enjoy the benefits of the iTerm2
| terminal, and use Emacs as a MacOS native GUI application,
| operating on my Linux files.
|
| Currently using it for compiler and OpenGL development, zero-
| knowledge cryptography performance optimisation,
| database/storage engine development, and accounting software,
| in C, C++, Go, Rust, WebAssembly, TypeScript and Nim and a
| fledgling language I'm designing.
|
| Credit to Apple, I think my 10 years old laptop is still
| serving me very well!
|
| That said, I've just ordered Apple's latest M3 Max with 128GB
| RAM. I expect it to feel similar, though faster, not running
| low on RAM and storage any more, and Homebrew not warning of
| an unsupported OS and compiling everything from scratch. The
| M3 Max will be my first daily driver upgrade in 10 years, and
| is quite exciting.
|
| There are a few things I'll be able to work on more easily
| with the new laptop and its larger RAM. LLM architecture
| exploration of course, but I have my eye on EDA and silicon
| and photonic simulations, large scale code analysis, new data
| storage and indexing architectures, current gen GPU APIs, and
| getting back into 3D graphics. I expect the 128GB will
| actually be useful for new types of activities for me. I use
| servers now but my internet connections are slow and high
| latency so local will be transformative.
|
| But old-school things like Teams, Discord, Telegram, browsers
| with many tabs, office applications like spreadsheets, and
| various software dev tools, compilers, YouTube et al, even
| open at the same time, seem to work pretty well on my 10 year
| old laptop.
| hedora wrote:
| It depends on what you bought a decade ago. I have a machine
| with one of these laying around:
|
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2600+.
| ..
|
| It will do all the things you mentioned (the CPU score is 33%
| that of an M2).
|
| The entire machine cost about $1000 at the time (exclusive of
| case) if I remember right. It certainly wasn't $2000.
|
| Since then I put a more modern video card in it for better
| compatibility (not performance).
|
| I'd guess the original card it had (NVIDIA GTX 560) could run
| teams, a web browser, etc, fine, but NVIDIA's binary linux
| drivers don't really support that card any more (they claim
| to, but they don't support modern OpenGL APIs)
| account-5 wrote:
| MX Linux is my distro of choice, currently running my 13 year old
| desktop I built in 2010.
| serf wrote:
| I haven't used it before. Why do you like it?
|
| Given that it's apparently worked around xfce i'm not sure how
| I missed it, that's by far my favorite DE.
| account-5 wrote:
| I'm using the fluxbox flavour. I'm using it because my 13
| year old desktop runs it like it's a new computer. It's
| rolling release, of sorts, meaning no 2/5 yearly
| upgrade/reinstall. I think also it doesn't use systemd, which
| was at some point important to me. It's really lightweight
| too, I run VMs on it no hassles. I used to use crunchbang
| before it was discontinued because I want the operating
| system to get out the way so I can get on with what I need to
| do. Unlike Mac and Windows which are, from my experience,
| always in your way.
| severine wrote:
| It is IMO the best Xfce distro, it has a set of apps (MX-
| Tools) with a lot of quality of life features (snapshots,
| backups, services manager, and much more). Systemd is
| optional, off by default but works perfectly if needed. Great
| community and great performance, 10/10 will keep using it and
| installing in relatives' machines, try it!
| type0 wrote:
| One of the best features of MX that you can run it easily as
| persistent image on USB, especially if you get yourself a small
| relatively good NVMe SSD with enclosure (DIY USB stick)
| linmob wrote:
| If one wants to put these old machines to good use, it's worth
| remembering (after checking that they still work), that these
| older machines (the iMac and the MacBook) are still user-
| upgradable.
|
| The iMac should allow for 4GB of RAM (of which only 3 will be
| usable), the MacBook unofficially supports 8GB. Add in a cheap
| S-ATA SSD, and for some not too high, two digit amount of EUR or
| USD, these machines will be actually useful for someone.
| password4321 wrote:
| Virtually every step in the iFixit upgrade guide for separating
| the screen glued onto my iMac was followed by "if you do this
| wrong you'll crack the screen" so I've stuck with it as a
| beautiful screen for connecting to other more powerful
| machines.
| linmob wrote:
| I was going to add an caveat about that, but it turns out,
| that for the iMac 5,1 (the model discussed in the article)
| RAM upgrades are easy [1] (SSD not so much, but it should
| still be better than some of its aluminum successors [2]).
|
| That said, I definitely agree and advise: Before you order
| parts to upgrade things, check whether you feel up for the
| install procedure.
|
| [1] https://de.ifixit.com/Anleitung/iMac+Intel+17-Inch+RAM+Re
| pla...
|
| [2] https://de.ifixit.com/Anleitung/iMac+Intel+17-Inch+Hard+D
| riv...
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| I upgraded the hdd to an ssd in a 2009 iMac. Don't think I
| ever noticed the "you may crack it" warning. Honestly it's
| not too bad. The more painful thing is actually working on
| the guts while also trying to hold the screen up (because
| it's attached to things).
|
| That said, the RAM is user-accessible on these older iMacs
| from a tray at the bottom edge of the screen.
| macNchz wrote:
| I upgraded both of my parents iMacs (about 10 years old now,
| but importantly with USB 3), which would otherwise have
| required screen removal to do the drive, by just hooking up a
| portable USB SSD, making it the boot drive, and taping it to
| the back of the machine. Huge improvement over the HDD.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| These older iMacs like the one in the article didn't use glue
| yet! That only started with the 2012 ones iirc. So anything
| before that is pretty easy to fix or Upgrade!
|
| (Especially the old aluminum ones, they just had magnets
| holding the front bezel in place)
| pachico wrote:
| Only a decade of life doesn't seem to me something that should
| require "revival".
|
| I'm still using my 11y/o Dell XPS which I cannot upgrade but
| works great.
| LispSporks22 wrote:
| This was my problem with the article too. It's not that
| ancient.
| LispSporks22 wrote:
| This guy calling my company issued MBP ancient? It's my portal
| into the cloud driven clusterfuck known locally as "production"
| still
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| Any Linux distro would run well on those, even the latest Ubuntu
| and Fedora.
| ladyanita22 wrote:
| To be fair, this would apply to all except the 1GB Ram IMac.
| That one would need an upgrade. After that, both the Macbook
| and it would run flawlessly KDE or MATE.
|
| Tbe 8GB Ram one can just run regular Fedora or Gnome without
| any issues.
| ge96 wrote:
| 2015 MBP i7, 16GB ram still going
|
| The display is so good
| C15JON wrote:
| You can get round that black but lit screen by connecting an
| external monitor. You can unplug it afterwards but it's needed to
| get Linux installed on some iMacs.
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| His MacBook Air from 2012 has (roughly) the same specs as the
| Lenovo I bought for my son in 2021! Poor me! :)
| worthless-trash wrote:
| If you bought it new from lenovo, the CPU is significantly
| different and improved, likely has faster RAM, usb3 and more.
| swagempire wrote:
| Not sure I agree. While about USB3 and even USBC it might be
| true, but I have a MacBook Pro 2011 (2.4Ghz Core i5), that I
| put a 256Gb SSD in and upgraded to 8GB of RAM. It is
| certainly as or more powerful than the Lenovo N5030 with 8GB
| of RAM I picked up new this year running Windows 11.
|
| Those older i5s age very nice. With the Open Core Legacy
| Patcher -- it runs Ventura very well, btw.
| 3VoLt_oZ wrote:
| do you know if there are up()downgradeable versions on the iPad
| operating system as well? Please some one..
| ireflect wrote:
| I asked this question on tinkerdifferent and got some good
| leads. Unfortunately the options are sparse and somewhat more
| challenging to do.
|
| https://tinkerdifferent.com/threads/reviving-old-ipads-gen-2...
| 3VoLt_oZ wrote:
| do you know if there are upgradeable versions on the iPad
| operating system as well?
| kunley wrote:
| Funny how some people in the comments here are calling the OP's
| hardware as inferior in terms of computing power, while in
| reality their software is often being run on production on much
| more limited resources paid with quite a load of money.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| This article is both excellent and brilliant. Lots of ideas...
| but one misnomer about Snow Leopard and 32-bit EFI.
|
| "You can force Snow Leopard 10.6 to use the 64 bit kernel by
| holding down the "6" and "4" keys during system boot. Likewise,
| you can switch back to the 32 bit kernel by holding down "3" and
| "2" during system boot. It may be stating the obvious, but the 64
| bit kernel will not work on a machine that is not 64 bit."
|
| That is a CPU that is 64-bit, but an EFI that is 32-bit will boot
| Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode, and the 32-bit Snow Leopard and the
| 64-bit Snow Leopard will run 64-bit applications.
|
| The 2006 MacServe was the first 32-bit EFI to boot and run 64-bit
| Snow Leopard, and support 32GB of ram, and I have heard that
| every Intel Mac that supported Snow Leopard after that could also
| do it, but I only tried it on Mac Pros and iMacs, and a few
| Macbooks. The iMacs needed a 4GB SO-Dimm on the right hand slot,
| and it would both recognize 6GB and run applications that were
| 64-bit.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Your milage may vary, but this was my source:
| https://blog.fosketts.net/2009/08/30/64bit-snow-leopard-kern...
| prmoustache wrote:
| With 1GB or more of memory, you don't need a specific distro. The
| most popular ones should run, albeit with not too much ram to
| spare for browsing with the default desktop.
|
| You only need to install a lighter wm like icewm, windowmaker or
| fvwm and you are good to go.
|
| And if those machines haven't soldered components, a wee bit more
| ram and replacing the spinning drives with SSDs would transform
| them to something functionally very modern.
|
| Having said that I would have probably gone the openbsd/netbsd
| route with those machines.
| jbirer wrote:
| I want to use antiX but the "proudly anti-fascist" political
| message on the website worries me - we recently had news where an
| open source contributor had their library randomly delete files
| on a computer if the user was from Russia and I am not sure if
| the antiX developer will ever decide my country (Turkey) is evil
| and I deserve to get rm -rf'ed.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Surely that could happen with any distro?
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I think the odds of it happening decrease as the distro gets
| more mainstream. At the very least you'd be more likely to be
| warned about it when it makes headlines.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Yes - like Asahi Linux, the developers of antiX seem pretty
| volatile and untrustworthy. Best to stay away.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Make it into a musical instrument/recording and mixing machine.
|
| I still support those directly (airwindows.com). I also produce
| VST2.4s that ought to work for your Linux versions of those same
| Macs. Fairly often they have useful things like digital optical
| ins and outs. My primary development is on an old laptop running
| Snow Leopard for just this sort of reason. I'm pretty sure you
| can get versions of Reaper (or the current version) for machines
| this old.
|
| If you want to get fancy put a SSD in the old machine, which will
| get a lot more out of it.
| cassepipe wrote:
| That old "mac can support 64bit OSes but will only boot 32bit
| EFI" was one of the first rabbit hole I encountered but casually
| trying to install Linux. I managed to do it but with such pain.
| This was the first program I compiled and I didn't know C or
| programming at the time :
|
| https://github.com/cassepipe/make_single_eltorito.c
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I ran into this exact problem when putting linux on a late 2006
| imac. I ended up using the mac specific image that ubuntu had
| available at the time which (based on later research) removed
| efi and relied on the machine's bios emulation. I tried windows
| 8, and then linux mint first but both didn't output sound. (I
| think mint defaulted to optical out with no way to change it)
|
| Booted up into a 64 bit OS just fine after that.
| dghughes wrote:
| I wish my 2012 17" MacBook Pro was working it had the dreaded
| video card failure. I wasn't aware of the recall until a few
| months after it ended. It sort of work for a while but it finally
| quit for about 2019 and hasn't been on a charger since.
|
| I'd put Linux on it I think it would still be good. It's got an
| SSD stuffed with RAM, I can't recall what CPU it has. Stupidly
| expensive it's embarrassing for such a costly thing to fail so
| soon, it had been failing only a few years into owning it from
| new but past its warranty period.
| nottorp wrote:
| But those aren't that old. How about the PowerPC ones? :)
|
| The collector in me still keeps a G5 iMac in sight on a desk.
| Don't think I've turned it on this year.
| maxmalkav wrote:
| You may want to turn it on and check how it is doing, just in
| case. That model is infamously known for its bad capacitors and
| their tendency to bulge and die.
|
| As a side note, I find OpenBSD the best modern OS for those old
| PowerPC machines. The main "problem" is the lack of modern web
| browsers, but it is not like the CPU can handle the modern web
| anyway :-)
| nottorp wrote:
| Oh yeah, if i run tenfourfox the fan screams :)
|
| I really don't know how people used the G5 iMacs (i bought it
| used for like eur 100). I ordered another set of fans and
| both are vaccum cleaner-ish.
| zitsarethecure wrote:
| Fedora 39 runs great on my decade old Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Proudly
| running systemd, too!
| volkadav wrote:
| I first parsed this as "decades old" and "mk linux", heh. Was
| rather surprised to see the new intel machines in the article and
| not, like, an m68k or ppc model. :)
|
| You know you're getting old when "lightweight distro" no longer
| means something that boots from a 3.5" diskette and only needs
| single-digit megabytes of ram.
| epakai wrote:
| Old x86 Macs with non-intel GPUs tend to be a dice roll. I only
| pick up old models with intel integrated, as none of them are
| built to be serviced, and you need specific replacements for the
| ones that are.
|
| They're neat machines, but even old ones hold a premium over
| contemporaries.
| Sakos wrote:
| I'd also avoid any older laptop with a dedicated GPU.
| Particularly Apple, but I'd say it applies to every other
| manufacturer too considering how little thought they generally
| put into sufficient cooling. I've seen way too many laptops
| with defective dGPUs.
| lizknope wrote:
| I have 3 old Macbooks.
|
| MacBook2,1 from 2007 (64-bit CPU with 32-bit EFI boot
| environment)
|
| MacBookAir4,1 from 2011 (full 64-bit)
|
| MacBookPro10,2 from 2012 (full 64-bit)
|
| The article author had a link to this page at the bottom. I've
| used this software for years to modify the Linux ISO and then it
| boots perfectly fine on these old 32-bit EFI machines.
|
| https://mattgadient.com/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-b...
|
| I run Fedora with the XFCE desktop on all of my machines whether
| they are brand new or 16 years old. It works fine on all of them,
| I've never bothered with a "light" distribution because the
| latest Fedora with XFCE always works fine for me.
|
| Most of these stay at my sister's and parents house so I have a
| computer there for web, terminals, and debug stuff at their
| homes. I've got newer stuff for daily use but these machines are
| still fine for occasional use like that.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Another nice thing about the MacBook2,1 is that it's just about
| the easiest machine to libreboot, and once you've done that the
| 32-bit restriction goes away (I'm running Trisquel Lite on mine
| for the full "libre" experience):
|
| https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/macbook21.html
| uuddlrlrbaba wrote:
| Personally I stopped messing with old hardware on the desktop
| side.
|
| Old laptops make great servers though -- built in UPS and KVM!
| Fire up some containers and enable all the P states
|
| But as a desktop there is a lot that is obnoxiously slow or flat
| out unusable on old gear. The modern web is really taxing on old
| hardware like this and its super frustrating to experience severe
| lag on even basic sites like youtube
| fishtacos wrote:
| This*
|
| Old laptops make great servers for the very reasons you
| mentioned Built-in UPS, good enough performance and also
| reusing old hardware instead of a landfill.Am currently using
| an 8GB laptop for a server as it's become rather expensive to
| use a 400W (on average) 4U server 24/7.
| rpgbr wrote:
| Debian with a basic wm, like Sway or i3, wouldn't be a good
| option in those machines?
| asow92 wrote:
| I use a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo 2007 iMac running Snow Leopard as my
| photo lab workstation. Upgraded to 5GB RAM, 512GB SSD. Runs
| Aperture 2, scans film, and prints photos like a dream. It can
| even do some light web browsing with
| https://github.com/wicknix/InterWebSnow, but it often struggles
| with the modern web.
|
| This machine can also be upgraded to a Core 2 Extreme, but I
| haven't found that necessary for my workflow.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| After Snow Leopard MacOS went downhill in performance, every
| app ran very slowly in my MacBook Pro 2007 with El Capitan,
| without ever using more than 30% of CPU capacity, the system
| just crippled them.
| asow92 wrote:
| Agreed 100%. 10.6 is arguably the best version of Mac OS
| ever. It gave us 64bit GCD and was highly optimized for the
| hardware of the time. Native software of the time flys on the
| build listed above.
| caycep wrote:
| granted, does anyone remember MkLinux w/ the Mach microkernel?
| zare_st wrote:
| Not about Macs but I "revived" my 15 y.o. desktop, had original
| board and CPU (Q6600), SSD and powersupply stored for years.
| Bought 8 GB of DDR2, a fanless GT9500 and a cheap case.
|
| My case is to have a modern PC but older types of monitors. I
| like to hook up CRTs just for fun. When you use sub-HD
| resolutions this kind of computer goes to Youtube normally.
|
| Which reminds me of how deep we're in era of iterative design.
| Modern workflow is possible on a 15 years old platform, because
| the platform hasn't changed significantly. Imagine trying a year
| 2000 workflow on a 1985 PC.
| badpun wrote:
| I have a decade old Mac (2013 MBP with discrete GPU) and it runs
| Windows 10 perfectly fine. I even do some light gaming on it.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I replaced the hd on a 2011 imac with SSD and it's amazing how
| much faster it is. Basically can be used for another 5 years.
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