I have an used, beat up MacBook Air 2015 - and I can’t afford a new laptop for a long while. My situation is a bit messy and sad at the moment.

I can’t use MacOS on it, because the battery was replaced by a third party and MacOS freaks out about it and locks the CPU to 400 MHz.

I can’t use Windows on it, because the Intel HD Graphics drivers are no longer maintained and all versions compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11 have a regression that disables the internal display - there’s nothing you can do about it, they only run on external monitors.

And there’s an unknown bug on the Linux open source MESA drivers that, on the HD Graphics 6000, also causes a black screen unless you use nomodeset, which is terrible for battery life and performance. I tried the latest Ubuntu, Ubuntu LTS, Linux Mint, Fedora, Bazzite, Arch, Endeavour and Opensuse Tumbleweed - every single distro was affected.

Except Pop!_OS. Maybe someone with more Linux knowledge could isolate what they’re doing different than everybody else, but man am I’m glad I decided to test this last .iso as a last ditch effort.

Also, thank fuck for open source operating systems, otherwise this device would literally be shiny electronic waste thanks to Apple’s proprietary battery bullshit.

  • kadu@lemmy.worldOP
    0·
    8 months ago

    Could be, though I have zero idea on how to check. All I know is that I can boot the installers (mostly on safe graphics mode), and I can install the operating systems, but they will always turn to a black screen after the initial splash animation unless I boot up grub and edit the parameters to include “nomodeset”.

    • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      If you want to keep it persistent between boots, here’s the method (don’t know if you already know, but this might help someone else who finds this post too):

      1. In the /etc/default/grub file you need to add nomodeset to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX parameter and then save the file.
      2. Run sudo update-grub and that will generate the new config and place the files in the right locations.

      Also, I had this problem just recently with a 2009 iMac. I recall having a 2009 and a 2012 MacBook Pro around that time with the same issue. I just assumed since it’s still around all these years later that there isn’t an easy fix. But maybe no one’s had the motivation?

      My theory on why it happens is that when you’re booting Mac OS, the screen stays on that whitish-grey colour right through startup. Most computers have a momentary black screen during boot-up. I think whatever they’re doing to allow that is what breaks the usual handover between GRUB and Linux.