I have a mid 2017 macBook Air for which the last supported version of macOS is Monterey. The MBA has a 128 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM. In other words a base level computer, but as it still runs well I decided to install Linux Mint Cinnamon 22 on it; that’s the latest version of Mint.
For those who are stuck with an unsupported Mac and are wondering what to do with it, here’s an outline of what I did; further details can be found in the links below. It’s pretty simple and no major issues were encountered.
First job is to create a bootable usb stick with the Mint 22 image on it. There are many ways to do this but I used the USB Image Writer app on my Mint 20.3 daily driver. Another way to do it is described here:
https://www.reallinuxuser.com/how-to-create-a-linux-mint-bootable-usb-in-macos/
The same basic method works in Windows (see below).
Once you have the bootable usb stick you need to boot the Mac. My MBA is old enough that I didn’t have to worry about T2 Chips or other newer security protocols, so all I had to do was insert the stick, hold the Option key down and hit the power key. The procedure is described here, as well as how to handle newer hardware:
https://www.reallinuxuser.com/how-to-use-linux-mint-without-installing-on-a-mac
After booting you’ll see a screen with an EFI Boot icon on it. Select it, hit enter and you’ll get some options. Make your choice and you should see a screen with an Install Linux Mint icon, which when double clicked will start the installation process, which is detailed here:
https://www.reallinuxuser.com/how-to-install-linux-mint-on-a-pc-or-mac/
The above link also has a link to creating a bootable usb stick in Windows.
Follow the steps in the above link and you’re done with the basic installation.
A few comments:
1) the links above are mostly for Mint 21.2 but they worked just fine for 22.
2) after the installation is complete and you’re booted up it’s a good idea to go through the initial steps outlined in the left panel of the welcome splash screen, particularly enabling the firewall.
3) the only problem I encountered was connecting via wifi to the internet. The installation did not recognize the MBA’s internal wifi, so I connected using a wifi usb dongle (Panda Wireless PAUO6; I don’t think this model is sold anymore but Panda makes others and there are also other vendors). You could also connect to a router via ethernet but there is no ethernet port on my MBA. After connecting I used the software updater to get all the latest updates. After a reboot the System Reports icon (an exclamation point surrounded by a square box) appeared in the lower right taskbar (panel in Mint parlance). I clicked that and got a message saying wifi drivers were available with an option to download and install them. I did that and no longer needed the dongle. If you’re still having trouble with connecting there’s a tutorial here: https://www.reallinuxuser.com/linux-beginner-tutorials-an-overview/ which also has a lot of other useful Mint info.
4) I did not see an option to dual boot; the installation procedure did not recognize that there was any other operating system on the SSD. Something to keep in mind if you want to keep macOS on the computer and dual boot into it.
5) all in all a very smooth process that took a couple hours. The slowest part was downloading the updates through the wifi dongle. Mint 22 runs flawlessy and is much quicker than than any version of macOS ever was.
