r/linux_on_mac • u/codegems • 5d ago
Linux Mint on MacBook Pro
Very happy with this! Linux Mint looks beautiful on more "modern" software. I say that because before I had installed Ubuntu on a MacBook Air from 2015. But the difference in screen resolution and overall build between that model and this laptop is night and day.
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u/Unsterile3844 5d ago
Great writeup. What year is your MBP?
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u/codegems 5d ago
Thank you! It's the early 2020 MBP, the last one with an Intel chip. I believe the M1 came out only a few months later... but I needed a computer at the time.
I had always kind of regretted my purchase since an M1 would've been better but now with Linux Mint I am VERY happy. This is a great machine, I'm using it as my primary machine even though I bought a new MacBook a few months ago lol. Can't beat Linux!!
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u/jhatari 5d ago
Great project, I have the same Macbook lying about, will def get into this project. How is the battery life like? Does sleep function work ok?
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u/codegems 5d ago
The T2Linux project is going to get you to dual-boot, so macOS will always be a restart away. I haven't needed it yet, but it's nice to know it's always there.
The battery life is better than macOS. That's actually why I went and bought a new laptop in the first place, I used to get like 3 hours out of this on macOS (Sequoia).
On Linux Mint I'm getting over 6 hours, so at least double. Note that my battery health is only 74%. If you replace the battery, you're going to be getting way better numbers than me. That's probably what I'll do next, but first I wanted to make sure everything worked. If I had gone the Linux Mint route first, I would've invested in a new battery and used this instead of buying a whole new computer. I messed up there lol.
Touchbar, bluetooth, keyboard, touchpad, gestures, brightness, all of these work. Suspend also works.
I highly recommend you copy the fonts folder from macOS into Linux. All my Apple fonts are on the Linux side so websites and the desktop UI look excellent.
The one thing I missed from Apple was TrueTone, that's the blue light filter that matches the room's light temperature. Linux Mint has an app called Night Shift, but it goes by time of the day or manual settings only. I'm working on a program to use my MacBook's sensor instead and make that automatic. I'll release it once I'm happy with how I get it working.
On my blog I wrote about my specific tweaks in Linux Mint but it's more about personal preferences and quality of life stuff. My computer is a tool but not a hobby so I was looking for a "it just works" sort of setup.
TLDR: Installing Linux via the T2 project's kernel patches will improve your MacBook's performance. You'll have a few distro options. I went with Mint because it works out of the box.
You should start here: https://t2linux.org/
I also followed this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyx_QrqhZuE
That's really all you need.
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u/jhatari 18h ago
Went the ubuntu way from the t2linux project and this is a really bad experience. Audio is terrible, everything is just slow. Ubuntu runs smooth on vmware on same machine. Go figure. Battery life is so bad. 45minutes at best and my battery is at 84% health!. I have re-installed, run updates and patches for hours. Just a terrible setup. I will try mint but I am not optimistic.
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u/codegems 18h ago
Oh wow that sounds awful. What model MacBook do you have? I've played with Ubuntu on other laptops just for fun and I think it's too resource-heavy. But it also always has excellent support for all hardware.
If you try again with Mint feel free to leave a comment if something's off, I'd be happy to help. Just last night I installed Mint again on a 2015 MacBook Air 11" which only has 4GB of RAM. I've had great luck with it on Apple hardware.
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u/Western_Wrongdoer_54 5d ago
Hai applicato qualche impostazione energetica particolare per ottenere quella durata sul tuo MacBook? Tipo tlp, o altri ? O fa tu tutto in automatico Linux mint ?
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u/codegems 5d ago
No special settings from me. The T2linux people write kernel patches specifically for these devices, so that’s taken care of by the time the installation is done.
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u/MolassesOutrageous34 4d ago
Obligé de partir sur Linux - chassé par Apple - j’ai choisi Kubuntu 24
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u/Primary-Strike5187 3d ago
Debian or any derivative of it is great on MBPs. For whatever reason Debian based distros (including Ubuntu and mint) are the only ones that worked with the Broadcom WLAN out of the box. Arch and arch based, and Fedora don’t work at all, or worked with major issues (like completely hanging on resume from suspend) and no amount of workarounds (disabling S3 sleep, systemd hooks to unload the module before sleep and reload after resume, etc.) could make it work. Debian and Debian based distros just worked out of the box with no issues.
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u/codegems 5d ago
I also wrote a blog post about my experience and the settings I set up to get this more comfortable / familiar for someone coming from macOS.
https://enocc.com/2026/10/21/joyful-linux-mint.html
Here is what I covered:
Touchpad Gestures (3 finger and 4 finger swipes with custom commands)
Hot Corners (1 custom command)
Keyboard Settings for macOS style bindings
Emacs compatibility changes
Touchpad Toggle (Enable / Disable)
Fonts
Night Light
Cinnamon Extensions, Actions and Applets