Will be installing Slackware on this mid-2012 MacBook Pro. Any suggestions?

Hello,

A few weeks ago, I inherited this 13" MacBook Pro (mid-2012) from a family member. As a casual Linux user, I've been considering installing Linux on here. I come from a background of using Debian, but I've started gaining interest in what Slackware has to offer, as it boasts being the most Unix-like compared to other distros. As I've never installed Linux on a MacBook (or any Apple-product, for that matter), is there anything specific to Apple products that I must do to get the most out of my system, or will it be relatively vanilla as far as a Linux install goes (i.e., what kind of proprietary firmware I may need, dual-booting, etc.)?

(note: I was kindly pointed here by LQ user greencedar, so this is a partial clone of an already existing post in the intros section)

I installed slackware64 14.2 on a 2012 MacBook Pro (macbookpro9,2) this summer. I couldn't get the generic kernel to work with LVM on LUKS for installation, but the huge kernel would boot fine until I recompiled to get only the drivers I needed. Even with the huge kernel, you need to type the LUKS password blind when the boot process seems to stall at about 7 seconds. I followed the instructions in README_CRYPT.TXT and README_LVM.TXT in the slackware64 directory. If you build an initrd and you include your video drivers (i915, etc.) in addition to the drivers for the keyboard, mouse, and filesystem and then you'll get a prompt to enter the password to unlock the LUKS partition.

Almost everything works, save for the SD card reader (I've read that using usb quirks one can get older slow SDHC cards to work, but it's not important to me, so I haven't tried) and the b43 wifi driver doesn't want to connect to my employer's WPA2-Enterprise network, though it works fine on WPA2-PSK wifi. You'll need the Broadcom firmware from slackbuilds.org to get the BCM4331 wifi working.

You'll also need to find the mbpfan program and start it at every boot. I copied one of the rc files in /etc/rc.d/ and modified it to start, stop, and restart the mbpfan daemon and then I added that file to /etc/rc.d/rc.M to have it start at every boot.

I wiped the drive and put in two MBR partitions, one for /boot and the other for everything else (using LVM) and installed lilo to /dev/sda. Installing to a partition didn't boot. By the way, kernel 5.4.55 works fine.

Mac hardware has its own booting key combinations that you should get to know. One is that you may have to hold down the "option" key when you boot to have the firmware recognize the bootable devices, especially on the first boot. You can then assign the default boot device by holding control as you either click the desired device or hit enter at the boot screen and then you won't need to hold the option key as you boot. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes the NVRAM ("parameter ram") gets corrupted--the most common symptom I have is that the battery is not recognized by the power manager--and you'll then need to boot while simultaneously holding the left option, left command, p, and r keys as it boots until it reboots a second time (you'll hear the chime a second time). Let it boot normally after that. If you need to reset the SMC (system management controller), which is rare (one symptom might be that the fan runs at top speed all the time) you shut the machine down and then simultaneousl hold down the left option, left control, left shift and the power button for ten seconds, and then you can boot by pushing the power button afterwards.

There are a few other annoying little problems that I had to solve that I've forgotten now, but nothing that's a showstopper. Since you've not had a Mac, you probably don't have any Mac apps that you might miss, but I've found replacements for most of the ones I've used regularly. Right now the one I miss most is Little Snitch, an application firewall. There's a forked project called OpenSnitch(fork) but I've not managed to get it to work on Slackware yet.

I'd like to suggest booting a Slackware Live from DVD or USB just to see if everything functions "out-of-the-box" OK. That way if some bit of hardware doesn't work you can look up what module it needs and be prepared. This is just a generic precaution since an inherited MacBook from around that era runs perfectly for me, but I did check first.