Install Linux Mint on a MacBook Air 11" - Mid 2013

The Apple MacBook Air 11" - Mid 2013 is a nice machine. It weighs only 1.08kg and is quite compact. Unfortunately, macOS Big Sur is the last OS from Apple supported on it. But you can install Linux Mint on it. The whole process is also shown in two screencasts.

To do so, you need only a USB stick. The installation process is as follows:

  • download the .iso
  • convert the .iso with hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o linuxmint-22.2-cinnamon-64bit.img linuxmint-22.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso
  • determine which disk device represents the stick with diskutil list
  • if it is, for example, disk2, unmount it with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
  • use dd to transfer the image to the USB stick sudo dd if=linuxmint-22.2-cinnamon-64bit.img of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4m (formatting the stick is not necessary as dd does a sector copy - also note: the screencast uses /dev/disk2, but /dev/rdisk2 (raw disk) is much faster)

Here is a screencast showing the steps:

Now you have a bootable USB stick and to install Linux Mint, follow these steps:

  • power on the laptop
  • press immediately the option key
  • select the second drive and double click
  • when the Grub boot menu appears, press the E key
  • add intel_iommu=off before quiet splash
  • type F10 (not Enter)
  • install Linux the usual way
  • now restart and boot from the internal drive this time (the USB stick can be removed)
  • do not forget to press E again, and add intel_iommu=off before quiet splash once again, as we didn’t persist the setting yet
  • unfortunately, we need to install WiFi drivers; an easy way is to connect with Bluetooth to a smartphone
  • once connected, activate the network
  • enter sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source
  • afterwards, the internet connection can be disconnected
  • to make the boot setting permanent, do sudo xed /etc/default/grub and change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="intel_iommu=off quiet splash"
  • finally, run sudo update-grub
  • now you have Linux Mint installed