cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/38558693

We have a Macbook Air mid 2013 and no matter what distro I tried, making wi-fi work was pain due to Broadcom drivers and not having ethernet port. Basically had to install the drivers via phone tethering.

However, probably because of the drivers, there are certain problems like disconnecting out of blue or really slow connection or cannot reconnect unless reboot the PC.

So I want to ask, if you have this Macbook and have Linux installed, which distro you’re using it with? How is it?

Recently I installed Bazzite on a home computer and printers, Xbox controller, iPhone connection, everything the owners need worked out of the box. I’m wondering, would it also work fine with this Macbook too?

Edit: I added these to a blocklist, which I created here >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf

This is for BCM4360 adapter.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist bcma
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist ssb

For now, it seems fine but need more time to see if the problems are actually gone. At least the reception issue is gone I guess.

Edit 2: Installed LMDE, which wi-fi was working even on live ISO. However, same problems also present here. It has dkms version of the driver but I don’t sense any difference. Same connection drops, same random slowness.

Also found this thread. It describes my issues, but sadly no replies.

Edit 3: Currently experimenting with iwd since I found out this thread from Reddit, surprisingly not deleted, yet.

I installed iwd, disabled NetworkManager, enabled iwd.

sudo systemctl stop NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable NetworkManager
sudo systemctl start iwd
sudo systemctl enable iwd

Put these on /etc/iwd/main.conf.

[Scan]
DisablePeriodicScan=true
[DriverQuirks]
DefaultInterface=wl
[General]
EnableNetworkConfiguration=true
[Rank]
BandModifier5Ghz=9.0

Though I didn’t add BandModifier since we don’t have 5Ghz anyway.

Then edited /etc/resolv.conf.

nameserver 192.168.1.3 #pi-hole IP

Also installed iwgtk to manage iwd with UI.

Seems fine so far, will edit again if it’s good or not.

  • oshu@lemmy.world
    3·
    11 days ago

    I have a 2013 i7 Macbook Air and everything “just works” with the latest Linux Mint Debian Edition, including wifi and both usb ethernet and thunderbolt ethernet.

    • muhyb@programming.devOP
      2·
      11 days ago

      Is your wi-fi adapter also BCM4360? That’s the one this Macbook has and no distro recognized it including Mint. Though this Macbook has i5, maybe they’re kinda different?

      • oshu@lemmy.world
        3·
        10 days ago

        lspci says I have a BCM4360 (rev 03). I can tell its loading a 3rd party driver because I see a warning about it tainting the kernel in my dmesg output.

        Note that I’m not running regular Linux Mint, but LMDE which is Linux Mint based on plain Debian instead of Ubuntu. Both are available on the Linux Mint site.

        • muhyb@programming.devOP
          2·
          10 days ago

          Hmm, same adapter then. Haven’t tried LMDE to be fair, but would it really be different from regular Mint regarding drivers?

          • LeFantome@programming.dev
            4·
            10 days ago

            Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS. LMDE is based on Debian Stable. Different kernels. So yes, drivers may be different.

            • muhyb@programming.devOP
              1·
              9 days ago

              That makes sense. Still, if LMDE works out of the box where regular Mint doesn’t, I’ll be surprised.

          • oshu@lemmy.world
            3·
            10 days ago

            They are based on different kernels and what I can tell you is that I tried a few distros and either or both the trackpad and wifi were not working.

            LMDE was the first distro I tried that just worked. I didn’t try the mainline Mint first because I like debian. I’m running enlightenment as my desktop and terminology as my terminal.

            • muhyb@programming.devOP
              1·
              9 days ago

              That’s interesting. I’ll try this. It’s also good on the long run because it’s a slow update system like Debian, I can think this as an alternative to what I initially planned with an immutable distro.

    • muhyb@programming.devOP
      1·
      9 days ago

      Do you have netspeed fluctuation for wi-fi? I installed LMDE by the way. The driver came pre-installed, which is great. However there is still a problem it seems. It’s fine when i first boot it, after some time the speed drops to below 2 mbit/s. I disabled the powersave for the driver but it only helped with the connection drops.

      • oshu@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        I haven’t experienced any connection drops on wifi and I haven’t noticed any slowdowns. To be fair, I haven’t done any load testing. I’m traveling now but I can do some testing when I’m back next week.