Cannot get linux to work on a macbook pro 2011 (early, 15 inch)

Software & Operating Systems Linux
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Hi, I am trying to get Linux to work on my macbook pro early 2011 (15 inch) but nothing is work, I have tried Ubuntu but I just get a black screen when I try to install. I am unable to reinstall OS X (disk doesn’t work and online recovery doesnt work) so dual booting is out of the question. I am unsure what to try next. If I am out of options myself, would I be able to take it to a store?
Also I have heard that elementary works on macbooks, can anyone confirm this?

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Do you know someone who has a mac? If so, borrow it and make a osx installer usb. Then you can insert that in your own, and reinstall osx, so that at least work again.
I have earlier installed mint/Ubuntu on my 2008 macbook without any troubles.
I’m unsure of how good elementary works on macs.
But start out by getting osx working again, so your mac isn’t a paper weight.

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I might end up doing that TBH, the only people nearby who have a mac are my grandparents, just gotta explain it to them first XD

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Just say you need to borrow it a few minutes, they might not undertand what you’re doing :wink:

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But also, here is what I remember from when I installed linux on my macbook.
I started out in osx, where I shrunk the osx partition on the disk. Then I formatted the free part of the disk to fat32 or something.
Then I created a usb linux mint installer, and rebooted.
Spamming the alt key brought up the boot menu, where i could chose the usb install stick. Then I installed it on the free part of the disk.
It’s a few years ago I did it, but that’s about what I did back then.

Edit for typos.

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Do you have more than one GPU? In that case you may be able to fix it by following this guide https://askubuntu.com/questions/716565/macbook-pro-efi-and-nvidia-setpci-ids

As far as compatibility out of the box goes the best one on my mid 2010 mbp was Manjaro (although wifi required a bit of work)

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Also if you want to install Mac OS but you don’t have the drive you can use the internet recovery if the firmware is recent enough (you should be fine though), just hold cmd+option+r at boot