Hi all, I’m dipping my toes into Linux again after almost 30 years, and I’m looking specifically for any distros that will run on a mid-2010 Macbook (Intel Penryn-3M Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM and a 1T HDD). Video is integrated Nvidia GeForce 320M.

I’ve already tried Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon booting off USB (but not installing) and it runs well, even wifi and video, no hitches at all. And going forward I’d be fine with Mint from what I’ve seen so far.

But before settling in on one distro, I’d like to try as many as will run on this ancient Macbook, because my endpoint is to eventually convert my much newer Windows machines to Linux, so I’m not just deciding for the Macbook. I am, however, limited to that as my test machine for the moment.

I’m not at all new to tech, but consider me a noob to Linux, esp Linux GUIs: last time I ran it in the early 90s it was text only. I don’t even remember what flavor it was, lol. So yeah, I’m starting from scratch here but can pick it up quickly if I’m pointed in the right directions.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

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Many thanks to everyone who gave me their time and made suggestions. I was looking for myself as well, so now I have many distros to try, lol. I have checked the system requirements and install directions for each of the following, and here is the list I have so far of distros that will work on this old MacBook (not in any particular order):

Will definitely try
Linux Mint 21.2
OpenSUSE Leap 15.5
AntiX 23
Debian 12 “Bookworm” with Xfce
Peppermint OS
Linux Lite 6.4
MX Linux 23 (after RAM upgrade)
Pop! OS 22.04 (after RAM upgrade)

Might also try, but might not (various reasons):
Zorin OS 16.3 Core and Lite
Solus 4.4 “Harmony” with Budgie (after RAM upgrade)
Fedora with Xfce

Thanks again!

  • LinuxSBC@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 years ago

    Pretty much anything with XFCE, LXDE/LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, a window manager like Sway or i3, or probably some others I’m forgetting, will work just fine. GNOME and KDE are the most popular but the slowest, and from what I remember, Deepin, Budgie, and Pantheon are somewhat slow.

    • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’m mainly using Budgie lately, and its quite fast, even on older hardware. I would say it feels faster than cinnamon (and much more pleasant to work with imo), but unfortunately it’s very unstable.

  • MrTHXcertified@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Ooh, I just did this! Mid 2010 white MacBook, Core 2 Duo P8600, 2GB, spinning rust HDD.

    *Strongly recommend switching to SSD. I also added an 8GB stick (so 9GB total, hah) but my hunch is that even the SSD alone would have made this machine much more enjoyable.

    I ultimately decided on MX Linux, although with systemd as init so that logind could handle lid and power button events. The default power manager (XFCE?) would result in a black screen upon resuming otherwise. MX Linux also worked the best for me in terms of optimizing for battery life.

    PeppermintOS was my second place but also had the black-screen on resume.

    I also tried various flavors of Mint but felt that Peppermint and MX were ever-so-slightly leaner in terms of features I actually use and battery life.

    Avoid Void Linux. On my system the trackpad only worked in one direction.

    I was not able to get the nVidia card to work with proprietary drivers. It’s so old that it requires legacy drivers (340) and I just ran out of patience. Nouveau or bust.

    I am currently using it for casual web browsing and YouTube. It handles YouTube pretty well although I’m still searching for a native frontend that allows me to login to my YouTube account so I get all my subscriptions and stuff.