I was unable to get Mint installed on my MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015). You can use a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter to get internet access. I may have culled them and donated them to FreeGeek long ago. I will rummage through my boxes of stuff to see if I still have any 10/100 USB NICs left and if yes, if they are still supported by any OS. Apple product is an almost completely alien world for me. Thank you for your informative and highly detailed reply. With a laptop with an ethernet port it's no problem, but without that ethernet port you have to jump through hoops if the driver that you need is from closed source.Įverything else will work, including the webcam, but you might need to install and use guvcview for it to work smoothly.įrom the Apple that I am typing this on now:īroadcom BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n vendor: Apple AirPort Extreme driver: wl This is a drawback to using a distribution that is 'free and open-source software only'. It will install the 'wl' right out of the box. If you are unprepared for this, either with a linux-compatible usb to ethernet port adapter or an Android for tethering, then use MX Linux. Ubuntu/Mint (and Arch) won't install proprietary drivers for Broadcom out of the box, and because Airs don't have an ethernet port you run into the problem of not being able to use the Driver Manager to download and install the wl driver via hard-wired ethernet. HOWEVER, you are going to run into the problem of wifi not working, because Mint will not install the needed Broadcom wifi driver (wl) without user intervention.

Macbook air model number a1466