About 6 months ago my home got broken in and among with the items stolen was my dell Vostro laptop running Slackware. I have been itching to get another laptop and I wanted get a brief survey of what Linux users think of a MacBook Air. Have you got the feeling of being jipped after purchasing a MacBook and finding out that you can almost re-create the same OS experience from one of the many free distros on the internet? Or is there something to a MacBook that I'm not getting? What do you think?

My daughter in law has a Macbook and I was forced to use it once for about 10 minutes. I was ready to go postal immediately so there's my opinion. My latest is an HP DV6-7245 with an AMD A-10, 8GB RAM and a 750 GB drive. Paid a shade over $350 for it on Ebay...

I have a circa 2007 MacBook that runs Linux perfectly, and is still going strong after all this time. I cannot, however vouch for the newer ones.

MacBooks are often terribly overpriced.

Any good Windows laptop will be just fine, but do question the hardware heavily. I highly recommend you stick to either Intel or Nvidia for graphics due to the fact AMD has just way too many issues with proper driver support. Also be wary of Wi-Fi drivers. Look for Intel and Atheros chipsets. Be wary of Broadcom and other brands. Some Broadcom chips are supported well through the free and OEM drivers, but some are not. Check first.

I agree on the overpriced part.

I have used a Mac (it belongs to an outfit I sometimes volunteer for); it's okay when it's not being annoying.

If you are willing to pay Mac prices, why not consider a native Linux machine from Zareason or System76 or ThinkPenguin? I loves me my Zareason Strata.

Sorry to hear that. Hope its file system was either encrypted or there was nothing personal on it?..


I use a company issued MacBook Air. It doesn't run Linux but OS X.


The "almost" part is key here.


I think that, just like with a certain other OS vendor, here it's integration with iServices and other iGadgets that's key for providing efficiency. Outside of that environment it's just a sleek and speedy slab of aluminium. Wouldn't have bought it myself.

Add the fact a MacBook can cost between $1,000 and $3,000 makes them very non-economical if not un-practical.

Any Windows laptop can run between $250 to $2,000 depending on what you buy, but you do have more choices.

Because you're running GNU/Linux, getting a more economical laptop makes more sense. A Lenovo IdeaPad G505S, for example, normally runs about $500 and they should be well supported under GNU/Linux.

I wouldn't give a penny of my money to Apple, I consider them to be a dictatorship!

I hate OS X, i hate how it works; and despise using it. I do own a macbook pro however, which i purchased years ago. I run Gnu/Linux on it. It works well, but the battery life on Gnu/Linux can not compare to that of OS X. If battery life is a swaying argument, then don't be fooled, you won't get it with Linux, (or Windows for that matter). OS X is optimized for the hardware.

Besides all that, would i buy a mac again? Doubtful. My primary laptop now is a Thinkpad T430. It's a much better Linux laptop.


I personally dislike Apple's locking in, but recently i became extremely fed up with Android, and took the plunge and purchased an iphone. I have used ipods before. I disliked the way they worked, and the fact i had to boot up Windows to update the songs on it, really bothered me. I procrastinated over this decision and went for several Android alternatives before ending up with the iphone. I have now switched to an iphone 4s, and am finally happy with a smart phone.
I don't like Apple, but generally they do make quality products.

True. That's one reason quite a lot of people hate Unity and other OSX-ish OSes (and that includes OSX).

That's a contradiction. Gadgets are just for toying around, never for efficiency. And quite a lot of people would argue OSX speed and usability, by the way. (Apple's core claims, that is.)

They're worth it to me for the 16:10 screen thats why there are three in the family. When the time comes I'll get another one.

I'm planning to buy a next-model Macbook Air (with a Broadwell CPU and a 2k screen) next year. Yes I intend to run Linux on it.

I should preface this post with an acknowledgement that I have a love-hate relationship with Apple. On one hand, they pay more attention to privacy than any other company within an order of magnitude of their size, and explicitly include audio engineers in their target audience. (It makes us feel good when a big company actually cares.) On the other, they have enough arrogance about the way they do things that it makes me want to pick them up and shake them.

It all depends on what you're going to use it for. If you need OSX for something, but don't need insane processing power and don't need a disk drive, go for the Air. If you do need a disk drive, or high specs, you would have to get it separately or take the plunge for an insanely overpriced Macbook Pro. As far as I know, there are very few reasons for a slackware lover to go for a mac.

1: You need OSX specifically for some purpose. There are a few applications that really require OSX, among them some professional audio editing software that makes the famous FL Studio look like a toy. (No, this is not hyperbole; my needs outstripped the devs in about a week. All the Linux and Windows DAWs didn't work for me personally, and Apple is mostly better with user privacy than MS, so this is my excuse for owning an "insanely overpriced Macbook Pro".) I don't know of any other "OSX exclusive applications with no reasonable alternatives" specifically, but I don't doubt they exist.

2: You are so rich you can afford to get a laptop for the awesomeness of the touchpad/trackpad alone. There are other pieces of hardware in a Macbook that are awesome, but the trackpad is the only one that I haven't seen other manufacturers match. Admittedly, my Macbook Pro did fall on the floor once and there was zero damage, but I think its survival was a fluke. If you need something that could withstand being dropped, go for a dedicated 'ruggedized' machine. If you don't need the actual OSX, the high-end hardware is the only reason to get one, and if that's your reason, an Air is next to useless and you should get a Macbook Pro or some other hyper-high-end laptop and a wireless mouse (hamster).

If you do need to use OSX for a specific application, be warned! Some people really like the Mac way of doing things, but as a Slackware user, it will be maddeningly rigid for you. There are ways to beat OSX into submission, and get a little customization out of it, but the UI customization community is struggling to stay alive. Aside from changing a few toggle-button settings and about 25 numerical parameters with bash, there is very little left. Theming, aside from folder and application icons, requires enough digging around in root account files and code injection to be the metaphorical equivalent of a railgun. The apps Flavours, cDock, and LiteIcon together make a good railgun.

If you need to dual-boot OSX and Linux, it's something I haven't figured out how to do yet, but it sounds a little harder than dual-booting Windows 8. There's no sort of secure boot; the problems have more to do with Apple inventing their own partition types and filesystems, so if you know enough about partitioning, it may or may not be a problem. If you installed Slackware yourself, you are enough of a genius that once you learn about GUID and hfs+, it should be relatively easy. To reiterate: if you do not need OSX specifically, I can think of no reason whatsoever to get a Macbook Air. Macbook Pro, maybe, for hardware if you have the money.