Despite a general lack of real-world experience, many teenagers are overly confident in their opinions, often to the point of brashness and arrogance. In the late 90s and early 00s I was no different, firmly entrenched in a clichéd belief that Apple computers weren’t worth the silicon they were etched onto—even though I’d never actually used one. Eventually, thanks to a very good friend in college, a bit of Linux knowledge, and Apple’s switch to Intel processors, I finally abandoned this one irrational belief. Now, I maintain an array of Apple laptops for my own personal use that are not only surprisingly repairable and hacker-friendly but also serve as excellent, inexpensive Linux machines.
Of course, I will have ruffled a few feathers suggesting Apple laptops are repairable and inexpensive. This is certainly not true of their phones or their newer computers, but there was a time before 2016 when Apple built some impressively high quality, robust laptops that use standard parts, have removable batteries, and, thanks to Apple dropping support for these older machines in their latest operating systems, can also be found for sale for next to nothing. In a way that’s similar to buying a luxury car that’s only a few years old and letting someone else eat the bulk of the depreciation, a high quality laptop from this era is only one Linux install away from being a usable and relatively powerful machine at an excellent bargain.
To be fair to my teenage self though, Apple used to use less-mainstream PowerPC processors which meant there was very little software cross-compatibility with x86 PCs. It was also an era before broadband meant that most people could move their work into cloud and the browser, allowing them to be more agnostic about their operating system. Using an Apple when I was a teenager was therefore a much different experience than it is today. My first Apple was from this PowerPC era though; my ThinkPad T43 broke mid-way through college and a friend of mine gave me an old PowerBook G4 that had stopped working for her. Rather than have no computer at all, I swallowed my pride and was able to get the laptop working well enough to finish college with it. Part of the reason this repair was even possible was thanks to a major hacker-friendly aspect of Apple computers: they run Unix. (Note for commenters: technically Apple’s OS is Unix-like but they have carried a UNIX certification since 2007.)
I had used Unix somewhat in Solaris-based labs in college but, as I mentioned in a piece about installing Gentoo on one of my MacBooks, I was also getting pretty deep into the Linux world at the time as well. Linux was also designed to be Unix-like, so most of the basic commands and tools available for it have nearly one-to-one analogs in Unix. The PowerBook’s main problem, along with a battery that needed a warranty replacement, was a corrupted filesystem and disk drive that I was able to repair using my new Linux knowledge. This realization marked a major turning point for me which helped tear down most of my biases against Apple computers.
Over the next few years or so I grew quite fond of the PowerBook, partially because I liked its 12″, netbook-like form factor and also because the operating system never seemed to crash. As a Linux user, my system crashes were mostly self-inflicted, but they did happen. As a former Windows user as well, the fact that it wouldn’t randomly bluescreen itself through no fault of my own was quite a revelation. Apple was a few years into their Intel years at this point as well, and seeing how easily these computers did things my PowerBook could never do, including running Windows, I saved up enough money to buy my first MacBook Pro, a mid-2009 model which I still use to this day. Since then I’ve acquired four other Apple laptops, most of which run Linux or a patched version of macOS that lets older, unsupported machines run modern versions of Apple’s operating system.
So if you’ve slogged through my coming-of-age story and are still curious about picking up an old Mac for whatever reason—a friend or family member has one gathering dust, you’re tired of looking at the bland styling of older ThinkPads while simultaneously growing frustrated with the declining quality of their newer ones, or just want to go against the grain a bit and do something different—I’ll try and help by sharing some tips and guidelines I’ve picked up through the years.
Starting with broad categories of older Apple laptops to avoid, the first major red flag are any with the butterfly keyboard that Apple put on various laptops from 2015 to 2019 which were so bad that a number of lawsuits were filed against them. Apple eventually relented and instituted a replacement program for them, but it’s since expired and can cost hundreds of dollars to fix otherwise. The second red flag are models with the T2 security chips. It’s not a complete dealbreaker but does add a lot of hassle if the end goal is a working Linux machine.
Additionally, pay close attention to any laptops with discrete graphics cards. Some older MacBooks have Nvidia graphics, which is almost always going to provide a below-average experience for a Linux user especially for Apple laptops of this vintage. Others have AMD graphics which do have better Linux support, but there were severe problems with the 15″ and 17″ Mac around the 2011 models. Discrete graphics is not something to avoid completely like laptops with butterfly keyboards, but it’s worth investigating the specific model year for problems if a graphics card is included. A final note is to be aware of “Staingate” which is a problem which impacted some Retina displays between 2012 and 2015. This of course is not an exhaustive list, but covers the major difficult-to-solve problems for this era of Apple laptop.
As for what specific computers are the best from this era for a bit of refurbishment and use, in my opinion the best mix of performance, hackability, and Linux-ability will be from the 2009-2012 Unibody era. These machines come in all sizes and are surprisingly upgradable, with standard SODIMM slots for RAM, 2.5″ laptop drives, an optical drive (which can be changed out for a second hard drive), easily replaceable batteries if you can unscrew the back cover, and plenty of ports. Some older models from this era have Core 2 Duo processors and should be avoided if you have the choice, but there are plenty of others from this era with much more powerful Core i5 or Core i7 processors.
After 2012, though, Apple started making some less-desirable changes for those looking to maintain their computers long-term, like switching to a proprietary M.2-like port for their storage and adding in soldered or otherwise non-upgradable RAM, but these machines can still be worthwhile as many had Core i7 processors and at least 8 GB of RAM and can still run Linux and even modern macOS versions quite capably. The batteries can still be replaced without too much hassle as well.
Of course, a major problem with these computers is that they all have processors that have the Intel Management Engine coprocessor installed, so they’re not the most privacy-oriented machines in existence even if Linux is the chosen operating system. It’s worth noting, though, that some MacBooks from before the unibody era can run the open-source bootloader Libreboot but the tradeoff, as with any system capable of running Libreboot, is that they’re a bit limited in performance even compared to the computers from just a few years later.
Out of the five laptops I own, four are from the pre-butterfly era including my two favorites. Topping the list is a mid-2012 13″ MacBook Pro with Intel graphics that’s a beast of a Debian machine thanks to upgrades to a solid state drive and to 16 GB of RAM. It also has one of the best-feeling laptop keyboards I’ve ever used to write with, and is also the computer I used to experiment with Gentoo.
Second place goes to a 2015 11″ MacBook Air which is a netbook-style Apple that I like for its exceptional portability even though it’s not as upgradable as I might otherwise like. It will have 4 GB of RAM forever, but this is not much of a problem for Debian. I also still have my 2009 MacBook Pro as well, which runs macOS Sonoma thanks to OpenCore Legacy Patcher. This computer’s major weakness is that it has an Nvidia graphics card so it isn’t as good of a Linux machine as the others, and occasionally locks up when running Debian for this reason. But it also has been upgraded with an SSD and 8 GB of RAM so Sonoma still runs pretty well on it despite its age. Sequoia, on the other hand, dropped support for dual-core machines so I’m not sure what I will do with it after Sonoma is no longer supported.
My newest Apple laptop is an M1 MacBook Air, which I was excited about when it launched because I’m a huge fan of ARM-based personal computers for more reasons than one. Although the M1 does have essentially no user-repairability unless you want to go to extremes, I have some hope that this will last me as long as my MacBook Pros have thanks to a complete lack of moving parts and also because of Asahi Linux, a version of Fedora which is built for Apple silicon. Whenever Apple stops providing security patches for this machine, I plan to switch it over to this specialized Linux distribution.
But why spend all this effort keeping these old machines running at all? If repairability is a major concern, laptops from companies like System76 or Framework are arguably a much better option. Not to mention that, at least according to the best Internet commenters out there, Apple computers aren’t supposed to be fixable, repairable, or upgradable at all. They’re supposed to slowly die as upgrades force them to be less useful.
While this is certainly true for their phones and their more modern machines to some extent, part of the reason I keep these older machines running is to go against the grain and do something different, like a classic car enthusiast who picks a 70s era Volkswagen to drive to and from the office every day instead of a modern Lexus. It’s also because at times I still feel a bit like that teenager I was. While I might be a little wiser now from some life experiences, I believe some amount of teenage rebellion can be put to use stubbornly refusing to buy the latest products year after year from a trillion-dollar company which has become synonymous with planned obsolescence. Take that, Apple!
