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?
I installed mint. Used USB WiFi adapter, or shared phone as tethered WiFi over USB, can’t remember what one. Opened the drivers app on mint. It asked me to install the proper drivers. Done. No issues since.
Thanks, that’s good to know. Even though I currently fixed the problem, I’ll keep this in mind.
boot off a ubuntu usb. connect to wifi prior to install. now install. all the drivers and settings are integrated in your install. this is the easiest and “just works” option out there.
broadcom != broadcom, there are a buncha those in different macbook models and some have lotsa issues, some minor. that’s the price you pay for repurposing decade-old hardware. me, I am fine with the tradeoffs (MBP 15 2012 on Fedora ova here). good luck!
Thanks!
Well, the problem is no distro ever came with this driver pre-installed, at least the ones I have tried, including Ubuntu. I’m used to trade-offs too but this machine will be for someone else so it should work without problems. Later I have found about blacklisting and luckily that worked, and seems to be working fine so far. Since it’s driver related, distro choice won’t matter here. Unless I could have found a one that comes with that driver.
As someone with 3 Macbook Airs from the 2010s, running Linux, I can tell you that you’re wasting your time trying to make these drivers work. They’re unmaintained and they have introduced new bugs as new kernels come out (as the kernel changes over time, old drivers stop working 100%). For example, the mid-2011 Macbook Air locks up completely when downloading large files. The 2012 one doesn’t wake up from sleep due to the wifi.
The solution is to completely disable these drivers via blacklisting them. And then buy a TINY usb wifi, like the tp-link one, for $6. It works perfectly and it takes no space (just one of your usb ports). That’s the solution. Everything else is a waste of time, speaking from experience. The kernel bug reports I did went unanswered.
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro.
This is what used to enable RPM fusion in Fedora and get the broadcom drivers:
https://ostechnix.com/how-to-enable-rpm-fusion-repository-in-fedora-rhel/
https://doc.fedora-fr.org/wiki/Dépôt_RPM_Fusion
It solved every problem but I have to redo the operation maybe once every two years.
I’m not familiar with this exact problem, and you’ve gotten some good answers from people who are, so I’ll only suggest that if you can’t get it working, sacrifice a usb port to a Wi-Fi dongle.
The WiFi still works on EndeavourOS on my 2012 MBP but even then I couldn’t use WPA 3 on my router. I could tell the writing’s on the wall for that chip so I got a tp-link USB WiFi adapter that’s recognised straight away without any tinkering.
I get to use modern secure protocols and feel confident nothing will mess up because I haven’t had to tinker or try anything to have it working.
I had very similar problems with Realtek wifi on an HP laptop.
A possible fix:
Run “iwconfig” and check your adapter power management setting. If it’s on turn it off: “iwconfig [interface] power off”.
This solved most the wifi problems on my system.
on fedora (ain’t got iwconfig no more) it’s
sudo iw wlp3s0 set power_save offor whatever your device is.
MX Linux detects the wifi automagically.
