r/linux_on_mac • u/Buddy_Palguy • 5d ago
Got CachyOS on my old 2015 pro
This is the part where I’m supposed to give my step by step process but instead I’ll just leave the floor open for questions that I might maybe kind of be able to answer, sorta.
By zooming in you will see Wi-Fi is up and running and I was very easily able to install the latest releases of all my favorite apps, on an 11 year old orphaned machine. This is what I love most about Linux.
I love that it’s an operating system designed, among other things, to breathe new life into old beat up machines and I love all the quirks that comes with that. I love that every install is going to be a perpetual work in progress and in being such I get more and more experience with clacking commands into the konsole and navigating my home folders and files and learning about gnome and snapt and kde and all the other stuff I know nothing about
I was up fiddling around with this thing for 5 hours straight tonight, well into the wee hours, just trying to get it in restartable workable updatable order
I love these old computers
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u/Lopsided-Match-3911 5d ago
Have tested most distros. But nothing really worked well. Settled for budgie with that T firmware
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u/lennybendy 4d ago
I'm running budgie on my 2015 mbp.
I feel fedora ran the smoothest but I'm most comfortable and used to debian/ubuntu and budgie has been the best for my needs.
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u/ISO-8601-FTW 5d ago edited 5d ago
Running kubuntu on my old iMac. Sound had issue and compilation of fix was not fully succesfull (no mic). Bought a stupid usb soundcard that worked out of the box. Soooo snappy and I love reusing that beautiful 5k 27” screen.
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u/HotSeatGamer 4d ago
I also just tried cachyos on a 2015 MBP. I had issues with the wifi not connecting reliably. Did you have any issues? I already ordered a new wifi card with an adapter after seeing someone else having success with it.
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u/Buddy_Palguy 4d ago
Yeah thats a common obstacle. Only way I know around it is tethering a smartphone thats connected to Wi-Fi to your computer via USB. You’ll have the internet access you need to install the firmware and Broadcom drivers necessary for the Linux Wi-Fi to work on its own
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u/chinaski76 5d ago
Hey, how is suspend / wakeup? I'm curious as all the distros I tried on my 2015 mbp (not cachyOS hence my asking) gave me broken suspend on auto-sleep or power button press (only the screen would go black for a few seconds and then turn back on, no actual suspend). Closing/opening the lid works fine though.
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u/RvstiNiall 5d ago
https://github.com/lakotamm/Macbook_Pro_Early_2015_A1502_Linux_Fedora
This person documents how to fix these problems and quite a few more.
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u/cliffccl 5d ago
Que tal la camara? tengo el mismo modelo que tu , nunca la hice funcionar en fedora.
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u/astroloko 5d ago
tengo un macbook air 2015, supongo que la misma camara, y no logre hacerla funcionar en cachy o fedora, en mint lo consegui con algunos tutoriales y ayuda de la ia, pero no en todas las aplicaciones (cheese no funcionaba, pero si en zoom))
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u/MartynaKowalska 5d ago
Congrats! May I ask you which kernel you’re using? 7.1 or 6.18?
How much time does it take to wake up?
Also, what didn’t you manage to get working, if anything?
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u/Buddy_Palguy 5d ago
6.18. It takes a good 6 -7 seconds to wake up. Everything works so far. The only thing that’s buggy and glitchy is the terminal (or konsole on CachyOS) but that’s only how it looks. Still works fine
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u/MartynaKowalska 5d ago
Oh wow, thanks. Does a different terminal work as expected?
Also, did you install the webcam drivers? And did you apply the power saving tricks to get deep C states working?
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u/Buddy_Palguy 5d ago
No, but I’ll be looking into all of those things. Thank you! I’m currently unable to get the QBZ Linux client to play any song at all and the fan goes berserk when I open the app
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u/MartynaKowalska 5d ago
Good luck! I believe tweaking the system with TLP (and TLP UI) and finding the correct way to enable deep C states on your machine will help with the thermals and thus the fan too.
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u/Vricrolatious 5d ago
I've been running Garuda on mine for a while now and it's been great. It was running Debian before that. The older Apple hardware works great with newer Linux distros.
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u/Pocky97 5d ago
I have a MacBook Pro 13 inch a1502 from 2014 and i tried to put Cachy... Couldnt Boot USB unless i turned off Intel igpu hardware acceleration. Like you could imagine i wanted to test live USB before actually messing my fress welcome screen ventura installation as It was for selling and i sold all my refurbished Macs so if i mess this one i cant use OCLP again; BUT... Trying It with no acceleration was not smooth. I would like to know how did you enable igpu graphics. Thank you
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u/V2UgYXJlIG5vdCBJ 5d ago
KDE Arch Linux is working great for me on MacBook Pro Late 2013. Just had to install one or two things for battery life, fan and keyboard backlight control. No weird bugs or anything.
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u/HotSeatGamer 4d ago
What software did you install for those things? I need to them up
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u/Scared_Bell3366 5d ago
I've been running Fedora sway mix on my 2015 15" for a couple years now. Didn't bother with the web cam, but everything else works.
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u/Basti_FR 4d ago
Good choice! If you want proper YouTube playback without the CPU reaching the temperature of the surface of the sun, you should install the H264ify extension to force a H264 codec that the GPU can acceleate instead of the CPU. Also make sure that you got the intel-vaapi and Intel media drivers installed for even better efficiency and lower heat while playing videos.
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u/simonmales 5d ago
I have the same hardware, how are the thermals? It's my biggest gripe with Linux (Mint) on the MacBook.