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Comment by cassepipe | Hacker News Reader

Kind of unrelated but I would like to benefit from the knowledge of people hanging out here to ask if anybody is aware of how good and how usable is Linux on Intel MacBook? Is there a specific Intel MacBook that's known to be particularly well supported by Linux ? Been searching but I couldn't find much else than vague information and lists of Linux distributions I could install on a MacBook.

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Depends on the age of the macbook. Older models have reasonable support, newer models are (at best) a pain in the ass.

I generally hit the arch wikis with specific models for the best information.

This github repos also does a good job laying out current support for the 2016 models. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

Frankly, I haven't tried on a newer model then that - I don't buy apple hardware anymore.

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro with Touchbar and have Manjaro installed in it. It works fine but it is not perfect. No reliable bluetooth, never got touchbar working (so no esc and function keys). Its is not my main OS (I use Windows for work), but for studying and trying new things I use it. I wouldn't risk installing it without leaving a MacOS partition.

15 inch Macbook Pro's from 2015 are regarded as the best Macs for Linux and hackers in general. The ports are a big plus too.

I use Arch as a daily driver on my 2013 MacBook. Their wiki has all I needed to tweak to get it running perfect. Needs a few extra steps (had to pass some max specific kernel parameters to turn off thunder bolt for instance) but it’s leaps and bounds better than macOS.

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