Best/Good Distros for breathing life into 2015 Macbook

So, I’m working on getting a new laptop that I definitely “need”, but I wanted to repurpose my 15” Mid-2015 MacBook Pro as a full time Linux machine. It still works decently enough but I’m still on Big Sur and heard rough things about Monterey upgrades bricking intel Macs.

I have used a handful of distros; Ubuntu, CentOS, Manjaro, OpenSuse, Elementary OS, Solus and Most recently Rocky Linux. None were used extensively except Manjaro and Ubuntu.
I do really like Manjaro but I’m open to anything honestly.

Ultimately as I’d just want it to be something that is lightweight, can handle my daily computing needs, handle some CS homework from time to time, and have a smooth experience on old MacBook hardware.

Specs: i7 4770HQ (4 core 8 threads)
16GB ddr3
and integrated graphics

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I have a similar situation with a MacBook but I will probably let it stay on MacOS for a year or two as Big Sur should get updates for another year or two :slight_smile:

I know this doesn’t answer your question but just to point out that there is no urgency to go Monterey.

The macbook isn’t that exotic in it’s hardware so I think you should be able to run most distros, I’ve heard Ubuntu works fine but didn’t run it myself.

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Depends, what are good / best distro’s to you? If good / best means like the most streamlined experience, closer to the windows or mac touch of a operating system. Then it’s probably Pop_OS or Manjaro you’re after.

Those two distro’s provide a more full experience as a desktop / laptop operating system. Other distro’s are usually more gimmicky, as not to having a as-good experience. Not all of course, but many.

Pop_OS has full compatibility with .deb files. Thereby making all Debian / Ubuntu packages available and compatible

Manjaro has the AUR where people can upload / share packages with others, but these packages usually have user-written code in them. They are not supported by the official package maintainers

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Yes and no. It depends on what software you are talking about.

If you are talking about say a third party package (e.g. outside of the main repos for these distros) that is advertised to work with both Ubuntu and Debian, then it probably works on Pop as well. Or anything that is statically compiled is likely to work on any of these systems.

On the other hand, good luck getting a Debian package that is for a widely used library that many other packages link against working on Pop.

The AUR is tested against Arch, not Manjaro. Since Manjaro is based on Arch, almost all AUR packages should work without issue, but they are not guaranteed to work, as far as I know.

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It doesn’t say that AUR packages are tested against Manjaro and not Arch. It wasn’t implied either. But hey, at least u didn’t cherry pick the quotation. :+1:

It would be cool too, if u added some help for OP. Which is what the thread is about.

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