Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux on iMac? (jlai.lu)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Question is title.

In the past I've installed many distros on many older PCs, but never used linux properly (although slowly moving over to avoid win11). I've also had a heap of history with windows installs.

A family member has been testing Mint on an old laptop and is going well. This is a trial run before I update their iMac laptop (not sure what one but no longer supposed by OS updates).

I've never booted to an iMac BIOS or installed over top of apple.

Is this going to be like installing over windows?
What issues can I expect?
Should I consider another distro?

Asking here as searching results in AI bullshit websites.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

You need to know what you have. Other people have teased out that you have a MacBook Air, but there’s several different versions.

Apple hardware for like twenty years has used two types of naming conventions, the Trade Name (Approximate Date) and the Trade Name Number,Number designation. You might have a MacBook Air 7,1 for example which is an Early 2015. The TN N,N is the model Identifier and the TN (AD) is the model.

You can find out what you have by clicking on the apple menu in the upper left hand corner and choosing “about this mac”. The window that pops up will tell you the model and if you click “system report” you will get a ton of information that should have the model identifier somewhere near the top.

You can also look up the serial on the website everymac.com and it’ll tell you a best guess which is almost always right!

Once you’ve done that you can much more effectively search for the pitfalls of installing Linux on that computer.