Hi Community. Like the title says I have a Mac book and I’m looking to switch surely but slowly to Linux 100%. Now that being said I had installed one time Linux Mint and it was making my fans super loud computer was heating up and also the battery was getting drained a lot. However on a PC (dell brand ) I had no issues whatsoever .
Wanted to know if anyone in the community has used Manjaro on a macbook and if so what are your thoughts.
Hello,
There are a few macbook users here. Forum search is working.
On the archived forum are probably more topics about. One good resource is here
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MacBookPro11,x
even tho is not exactly for the 2015 model.
Another lengthy but useful discussion is here
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=198051
If you have specific questions or issues, is better to address them separately in a help request.
I use a 2015 Macbook Pro and it’s great. I don’t have any issues with fan control, suspend, etc. and the trackpad is super, as they always are on Macs.
The only thing that could be better is the Bluetooth performance. Many Macs (all?) have the Broadcom cards that combine WiFi and Bluetooth audio. In MacOS these work very well but in Linux heavy Wifi use sometimes interferes with Bluetooth audio. It depends on the distro (so probably on driver version, kernel or configs… my Manjaro installs generally have been fine). There’s also a tweak I always have to perform to stop stuttering, which is due to a default pulseaudio config that stops the audio sink when it’s idle for a short while. Once it’s idled, it doesn’t seem to recover correctly and you get very bad stuttering. It’s a very easy fix in the pulseaudio config file, but it’s somehting you need to know or it will cause a lot of frustration.
Hey thank you so much for the info above. With the WIFI issue and Bluetooth I can see why it can be a bit bothersome. Well have you tried to use an Ethernet adapter to see if the issue is fixed?
Hey also what edition of Manjaro would you recommend?
I don’t want to use any extra dongles, usb sticks whatever. But it’s not that much of an issue. I’m running the latest Manjaro with 5.8 kernel and everything is behaving well. There’s a gotcha for running 5.7+ on a Macbook. Have a look at that thread mentioned is the first reply
I usually run Gnome. I have a weak spot for Cinnamon as well and the Xfce version is very good as well. I personally don’t like KDE, but if you do, the Manjaro version is the best around, in my opinion.
Thanks for the input I’m going to read that post. Hey I forgot to mention on the early post if the front facing camera works. I remember when I installed mint linux last year I remember the front facing camera was not working. Does your work?
Forgot about that one… no, it doesn’t. I never use it, which is why I forgot 
there’s a reverse-engineered firmware for it, but it only works for kernels before 5.6 I believe, unless someone else did another one somewhere
Hello,
I use Manjaro on 2 Mac: Macbook Air 2015 and old Macbook pro early 2011.
All work “out of the box” on the 2011. And on the 2015 just add 2 packages: broadcom-wl dkms (aur) for WIFI and the bcwc-pcie-git (aur) for webcam, they build whit 5.4 kernel LTS, but not whit a greater kernel.
For the sound, I use the tips on this: How to setup Manjaro Linux i3 on a Macbook Pro — lobo_tuerto's notes
Fred
Excellent. Thanks for this helpful Information appreciate it
Don’t install bcwc-pcie-git. It will probably feck up your system, even on 5.4 LTS
Hello,
Why?
I use “Microsoft teams” (yes I know but it’s for job) every day in video and no problem.
Fredc
I’ve tried installing it on two different distros, both with 5.4 LT kernel. It borked both of them, causing the keyboard and trackpad to fail and causing all sorts of other device problems.
So I’m just saying, be careful installing old stuff like that.
make sure you have another kernel to fall back on
Ok, no problem for me.
I use à MacBook Air 2015 pure Intel.
I use a 2015 Macbook Pro, so I’m not sure why I have those problems when others seem mostly fine