Running the live image on the MacBook Air 11" 2011 (I believe) works fine.
The graphical installer collects all information (such as region, keyboard, partitioning and so on). When I click ‘install’ it waits for several seconds and simply quits without any kind of message. Nothing is installed. The computer remains as it was before.
The online manual says to run sudo setup in a terminal. Setup is an unknown command.
How do I find out what’s amiss? How can I install Manjaro on that MacBook?
First of all, any searches for answers will need the correct identifier, in your case MacBookAir4,1.
Secondly, your issues are most likely due to the low amount of ram of that model. The 2GB version probably won’t install/run at all and a distro like antiX would be a better fit. The 4GB one might run ok, in any case I’d download the Xfce minimal version.
Search the forum, there are a number of posts addressing the issue
Could not install with only 2GiB of RAM - #19 by linux-aarhus .
Minimum H/W Requirements - #4 by ydar .
Manjaro can run on low spec hardware - but as the ISO is quite large - even for the minimal edition - you will need to do a commandline install.
You can either use this guide
Or you may try the manjaro-architect package on the live iso.
When booted to the live iso - open a terminal and run
sudo pacman-mirrors --continent
sudo pacman -Syy manjaro-architect
sudo setup
NOTE on using -Sy: Generally you should use -Syu when installing - but as this is the live ISO it makes no sense to run a full system sync - we only need the package databases.
Thanks. It’s a model a1370 ( MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2011)).
As it turns out, the model seems to be not so relevant here. It seems the thing has too little RAM (2GB, shared with the display)
I may have been a little over-pessimistic here since my ‘won’t install/run at all’ did in fact refer to the calamares installer. As you can see here:
Acer One 14 Z1402 can't use keyboard and/or mouse in Manjaro XFCE - #7 by 6x12 .
running manjaro was possible/acceptable on 1.7GB ram even with an old fashion spinner hard drive.
Have a look at @linux-aarhus suggestion of using manjaro-architect to install the system, all you need is a working internet, architect will lead you through the process and pull the required package according to your choices during install. I recon that once that’s done you’ll have a fairly usable machine since all hardware is supported and your drive is fast.
Good luck.
Oh well. I realize that the MacBook Air (mid 2011) is a bit past its prime. If it takes a shoehorn to put Manjaro into that thing, I’d better reconsider.
Lubuntu 22.04 runs quite well, BTW. I just wanted to see if Manjaro was equally usable with the MacBook. It seems that it’s not, quite.
Thanks for your time.