We have this ancient Macbook Air just sitting around:
Mid 2013, i5 Intel Processor, 4GB memory, 256GB SSD
Basically an oversized tablet at this point.
Its last OS update was Big Sur, so it seemed like at time for a change. I have need of a small computer for use as a web server, so I decided to install Linux Mint, MATE Edition.
I put the bootloader on a USB drive, turned on the Mac while holding down the Option key, told it to boot from the stick, and voilà, the Live MATE version was up and running.
With no WiFi. Fortunately I have an old USB WiFi stick, so I could access the internet with that, but WTF?
After some searching I found that Linux Mint doesn't load the drivers for the Mac's Broadcom WiFi card.
Yuck.
The link has a solution. Since I have WiFi access already, I did it this way:
- Do the full MINT installation
- Log on, using the WiFi stick to access the internet.
- Open a terminal and run the command
sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source
If you don't have a WiFi stick, you'll have to get the source from elsewhere and load it onto a CD or USB. The link above tells you about that - Reboot.
The system should recognize the Broadcom wireless. It did for me, anyway.
I now have the world's most underpowered Linux computer, but it works. We'll see about the webserver thingy.
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