I know this isn't really a distro or linux. But my 2012 13" runs mac os ventura(mac os 13 iirc) perfectly using opencore legacy patcher. it just takes some time(30sec or so) to boot but after that ot runs rly smooth.
this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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I'd recommend looking up Ventoy and getting a big thumb drive (like 64gb or so). Then you can download several different distro live images and put them all on one flash drive and try them all out in a live environment. It isn't 100% the experience you'll get running it installed on the machine, but you can get a decent feel for each distro to see what you like and what you don't without having to keep track of 5-10 different flash drives.
I run Pop!_OS 22.04 on a 2015 MBP and it works perfectly (except the camera). If a 2012 can't handle Pop!_OS, you could try Lubuntu or Debian 12 with XFCE.
I used to use Pop! on my desktop for years, until an update they did a few years ago I didn't like, and I switched out of the distro. Never gave it another chance, but maybe I can revisit it for this mbp.
Do you know if you are able to map and do all the multi-touch gestures on it fine? And have you tried remapping some of the keys with the CMD button?
I haven't had the need to remap keys so I cannot answer that, but I do use multi-touch gestures without a problem. I do not know if the options are as diverse as the ones OSX offers since I left Mac years ago, but they are there
+1 for Pop. I've just done this. I had to run updates plugged into the cat 6 to get wireless, apart from that, everything just worked.
I run Ubuntu on a 2011 MacBook Air. I have to believe a 2012 Pro would also run it without issue
It runs fine on mine
Gnome is the only desktop that is closest to how macos works, looks and feels. It also has the best touchpad gestures.
I've used Ubuntu and Fedora on my 2014 MB Pro and they worked great. I would lean towards Ubuntu because they customise Gnome nicely and getting software is just easier on Ubuntu.
It's easier to find a deb than an rpm in my experience for the few times there may be an app you want but isn't in the repo.
Debian.
I run Gentoo on my 2012 MBP, but gentoo may not be as plug-n-play as others.
I want to focus on the two input drivers I've tried though: libinput and mtrack.
libinput will mostly work out of the box, but isn't as customizable. For example there's no way to adjust the sensitivity for thumb/palm detection. So when I try to do a "big" movement from one end of the trackpad to the other, the driver will accidentally detect a thumb and stop moving the cursor. I had to change the way I made contact to the trackpad for the entire movement to avoid thumb detection. Also libinput-gestures is great as another user has mentioned.
mtrack gives you ultimate control to fine tune the trackpad. But that eats away at your time. And imo, gestures are harder to setup.
I ultimately went with libinput myself because it achieves a 90% solution for me, with way less configuration.
I recently set up a 2012 Mac with Mint and it works great
Elementary OS is very similar to MacOS. Check it out
Hi, I run pop! Os for about a year on a mac book pro 2012. My biggest hassles are Bluetooth audio sucks (glitchy) and I had to install a wireless driver to get wireless to work at all. Other than that, it's working exactly as expected. Can recommend. It can't game, it can't play videos well because the inbuilt speakers suck (and the Bluetooth audio is glitchy), but it's plenty performant for my actual tasks. Runs smooth. I'm sure most distributions will.