Two years have passed since I began telling you about putting Linux on the 2017 Intel iMac I’d recently shelved in favor of a 2023 Apple Silicon Mac Studio. Apparently, some of the posts I wrote about this have become among my most frequently visited content, so here’s a brief update on how things are going with Linux on the older Mac.
My distro-hopping of the early days — mainly between Fedora and Arch — settled on Fedora in late 2023, while I ran what turned out to be a short-lived project for testing web browsers. I found Fedora easier for that, because several browser-makers provide official versions for not only Red Hat-based distros like Fedora but also Debian-based distros; you need only add the appropriate repositories.
Even after I ceased worrying about testing browsers, I still judged Fedora more convenient for the access to those official versions, not only for browsers but also other apps, such as 1Password. That remains true today. For other apps, I generally rely on either the official Fedora repository or Flathub.
I should add that I use “vanilla” Fedora Workstation. While I have tried immutable distros, they felt a bit limiting in some ways. (To be fair, I’m sure that’s at least part of the intent for data-securing purposes, and it probably does work better for many folks.)
My main use of Linux these days is as a gaming platform, thanks to the continuing advances of the Proton project. However, I’ve also found a handy weather radar app, Supercell Wx, which I can highly recommend.
I wish I could tell you I found solutions to some of the Linux-on-Mac issues I reported back in 2023, but that’s not the case. Moreover, I suspect those solutions won’t be forthcoming for the reasons I outlined at that time. Specifically . . .
- Audio — I never found a (permanent) way around the “dummy output” annoyance which made it impossible to use the iMac’s excellent built-in speaker system, so I’m still sticking to my workaround of USB-connected speakers. The sound quality isn’t great, but it’s also not terrible.
- Video — The iMac’s Retina Display remains something Linux doesn’t know how to handle properly so, particularly given my gaming emphasis, I stick to plain old 1920 × 1080 resolution. Meh. At least the text is fairly clear, which wasn’t always the case when I was trying to use 2560 × 1440.
(Update/correction, 2025-08-30: Well, I’d forgotten my actual settings. On rechecking, turns out I’m really using a setting of 3840 × 2160 but with text scaling set at 200%, although I run games at 1920 × 1080 because, otherwise, the old Mac’s fans run a lot.) - Sleep — Every once in a while, particularly after a major update to whatever distro I’m using at the time (i.e., this has been an ongoing practice for the last two years), I’ll play with system settings in an attempt to see if the iMac finally can sleep and be reawakened normally. Sadly, no joy yet. Although that’s a power-saving luxury I’d enjoyed all the years when the iMac was running macOS, it remains out of reach for Linux-on-Mac.
You may have expected that I’d have more to report in this regard, but last year’s health problems kept me mostly off the old Mac for months at a time, so it’s really only this year that I have resumed any degree of truly active use of Linux on that device.
While the Apple Silicon Mac remains my daily driver, I fully anticipate continuing to use Linux on the Intel iMac as long as I’m able. Since Linux on Apple Silicon seems problematic for now and may remain so into the foreseeable future, I will inevitably have to decide what to do whenever Apple EOLs macOS for my newer Mac, just as it did in 2023 for the older one. On the other hand: since that event is likely several years out and I’m already about to turn seventy, will I even care by then? (Eyes, typing fingers, and brain cells tend to fail at some point. One can hold off Father Time only so long.) Perhaps I’ll find out someday.
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2025-08-30 at 2:01:29 PM CDT.
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