Gnome is a very *hefty* desktop for such an old device. As others have suggested, a lighter distro like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Mint is really what you want if you're trying to squeeze more life out of an older device.
KDE is a pretty good choice too, it's base RAM utilization can beat a lot of traditionally light DEs these days, partially because X is so unwieldy compared to Wayland
@@seshpenguin Plasma might still be too much and even have visual artifacts if your GPU is truly ancient - for example a 32bit(!) CPU with integrated graphics, drivers for which are pre-Gallium... That'd be 2002-2004-ish? Yeah, I've tried Plasma 6 on that. Meanwhile XFCE is doing decently well. To be fair, a device this old should be running Puppy instead, 😅 but the Debian variant of Puppy really dislikes Ventoy.
I run mint mate distro on my 2008 unibody macbook core 2 duo and 6gb of ram and it is my daily driver for a laptop instead of turning on my space heater of AMD Ryzen desktop. only downside nvidia GPU but still works well on the open source drivers. i really recommend a lighter system like mint with the mate desktop it will feel relatively fast and plenty good enough to browse the internet watch youtube like this video right now. one suggestion for the mouse touche and touchegg will make tweaking the trackpad to add gestures easier kinda pain to install and chrome doesn't seem to work but firefox does. (i want my back and forward gesture damit lol)
SSDs make all the difference.. I had a 2012 Pro lying around too. I added an SSD, slapped proxmox on it and voila, "Mom, we have cloud at home". Besides really loud fans when I hit the dual core cpu with heavy loads.
Can never go wrong with flash storage. Even a cheap sata ssd, (and a ram upgrade to 16gb if you feel like it) can breathe new life into older pcs. I remember the difference going from a pitiful 5200rpm drive to an 860, I decided to never go for hdds on my daily devices. Though I still use larger hdds for archival or nas storage now, as I’m not made of money haha
Can't stand by what you both said enough, an SSD upgrade of any kind is the easiest and best upgrade you can give a computer, and I agree RAM is a nice optional extra. I too don't use mechanical drives on any of my machines now, think my editing workstation has 2 "dormant" HDDs that I wanna get rid of, just has old data from years ago, like my college/uni data, every other drive I use is either NVME M.2 or SATA SSD. My MBP I upgraded to SSD 8 or 9 years ago, and have upgraded my mum's and sister's laptops to SSDs. The only mechanical drives I'm using are 14TB drives in the NAS, but then those have SSD caching drives as a middle man to aid performance since I'm editing directly from the NAS on many projects since setting up a mini 10GBe network in the home office.
I mean yes - but i have a 2014 with an SSD and it's god awful slow too. I always find it funny that comptuers were once fast and just though software updates they really slow down over time.
I wouldn't use Ubuntu in an old machine like that. Maybe lubuntu or mint. If you have more knowledge of Linux there's other minimal installations like slack, puppy, etc.
The FPV on what you were doing were one of the best way to expose it to the public IMHO, and it also looks very well. I think more non-scripted, without complex editing, tinkering around videos on this channel would be pretty good, specially if you have something cool to show but not enough to be in the main channel
Thanks; I think I may try it again but hopefully for a more hands-on project; this one did a lot in one spot, but I imagine projects where I head back and forth to the workbench could be even nicer.
@@Tvirus12 Feels great on a modern macbook but idk about this trackpad. But people tend to say it's stupid when they're just not used to something. I feel the same about right clicking with a corner of the trackpad.
@@graphicsgod This is how I've always done it too, I have an older Macbook (though these days it runs Fedora on it) and I had no clue that there was even a right-click by just pressing the bottom right of the trackpad...
That's what this channel's all about! Would like to experiment with style, do more lightly-edited videos like old school RUclips, and see what sticks. Also just to get out some video ideas that I know won't "perform" and would harm the stats of the main channel (because love it or hate it, advertisers and the algorithm don't know how to handle content like this channel!).
My recent install of Ubuntu 24.04 on a 2010 MacBook Pro went smooth as goose grease. I installed a new SSD to provide my wife a full back of the original system and never looked back. Once I replace the battery and touchpad (the machine is 14 years old, after all), it will become my knockabout travel machine.
Did you replace the drive before or after installing Ubuntu? I’m looking to do this with my old 2011 MacBook Pro, but I didn’t know if there is a preferred order to adding a new drive and new OS.
@c.r.devries3072 I replaced it before I installed Ubuntu, and set the old one aside by way of backup. No backup can compare with the original. Good luck and enjoy your revived machine
@@c.r.devries3072 Yes, I did replace the drive to preserve the data on it. It was cheaper, easier, and preserved more data than copying it to a backup drive. Also, I figured that a new drive would outlast the current one I also recommend upgrading the memory if you only have 4 gig. Upgrades are cheap and cheerful, so you might as well install the memory while you have the machine open. I look forward to playing DVDs on my next long flight.
my Security teacher at the University had a macbook with Ubuntu. Was his daily-drive computer. Despite the "my distro is better" comments, you made a good choice.
I have a early 2015 Mac Air running macOS Monterey version 12.7.6 and tried both Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux Mint 22 without issue. Both OS's worked right out of the box without any noticeable concerns that an update probably wouldn't take care of. Keep up the great videos and reminding me that I have an old laptop! Seems like yesterday I was buying this thing. She may be old, but she's build right!
Me too, forcing yourself to point a corner in the trackpad instead of just clicking with 2 fingers anywhere is counterintuitive
4 месяца назад+4
I am kinda new to macos I use use them only for like last 6 years. I was always windows user and I have associated two finger click as right click on mac and bottom right click as right click on windows so thats funny 😅
@@Level2Jeffyou don’t necessarily need to exert pressure simultaneously with the fingers, just with having 2 resting over the trackpad and pressing with one is enough!
These laptops are fantastic. I did similar - upgraded the SSD, replaced the battery and installed Ubuntu. It is mainly used to play Minecraft on (quite serviceably) when the kids have their friends over. It was really simple. Much easier than buying and managing extra Minecraft licenses… 🙃
Great video! Keep doing these kinds of videos. Would also be nice to have an update later to see how it panned out long term. What I like about these videos is seeing you stumble and it helps to see that y'all are human and encounter issues too. Fan noise might be mitigated by repasting the CPU, another video idea for level2jeff. Maybe pickup some inexpensive upgrades at the same time if you decide to keep your mbair in service. Good job keeping ewaste out of the landfills!
I am prone to motion sickness so can't watch FPV videos. I just close my eyes, listen to the audio, and periodically open my eyes for a sec to check for something significant. The FPV suites the style of the video. The extensive narration still allows me to follow the content. Thanks.
+1 First Person POV video! I have a 2012 Mac mini running the latest Linux Mint, A 2013 MBP running Kali Linux (latest) and another 2013 MBP running Win 11. These are my older machines and they refuse to die.
LPT - On the Ubuntu boot screen, whether booting from USB or the internal drive, if you press the delete key, it'll hide the splash logo and show more verbose boot messages.
Good to know; I'm used to Ubuntu/Debian on server with no UI, so I don't have as much knowledge running desktop day to day (especially shortcuts... case in point the two-finger-right-click!).
I thought it was the Escape key. I use Escape all the time. Doesn't DEL just send an escape code, which begins by... Escape, so it sees ESC and displays the verbose log?
Not a Mac dude but since that is a dual core ,a lighter distro such as an XFCE like Q4OS might be in order to eek out a bit more performance. Full blown Ubuntu is almost as needy as Windows memory wise.
Removing options to make it more "minimal" is why I don't use Gnome for anything anymore. They removed basic stuff at this point like solid background colors. Gnome, you are going too far.
For me, it's Canonical's Gnome and Gnome itself that is frustrating. The old versions that Mint and Mate use are alright since it's based on older versions. Pop!_OS has always felt right for me with their modified Gnome they run in 22.04.
I personally like to use XFCE for a desktop. There's an ubuntu distro Xubuntu that comes with it as default. XFCE stays out of your way and functions like you expect.
@@echobucket Being able to set a solid color in the background might be too complicated for the user and didn't you know that having options is bad? And having options goes against their ethos and their holy design so obviously these useless things must go.
The Gnome developers got infected by the apple mind virus of "simple is always better" and "we know what's better for you than you do". They are both incredibly opinionated, and also most people think their opinions are wrong. They are designing for mainstream UX requirements and their users aren't mainstream users.
common issue on the 2010-2017 MacBook Air's is the ribbon cable going bad. This failure can cause these horizontal bars on the screen as the picture shows
4 месяца назад+20
Two fingers to right-click is standard on Mac, Windows and Linux
Just read PCGamers article on the Geerling Radio Barbecue experiment! Lol Awesome that your Dad and you got that kind of coverage! Hotdog speaker anyone? Best summer entertainment ever.
My journey started circa year 2000 installing yellowdog on an ibook clamshell, to turn it into something useful. Tried briefly gentoo, then settled on debian testing and stayed there ever since. So this resonates to me :)
osx big sur, she has a 128gb ssd and I have a 256gb ssd. Only work I’ve done to them really is clean out heat sinks and new thermal paste, still nippy and responsive, as long as you don’t ask the world of it
A nice model! I have an MDD I've been restoring/upgrading a while now, and it's running pretty well. Want to try editing an old school 4:3 video on it with Final Cut Express!
Seeing you have a problem and immediately google it makes me feel better. Watching Linux videos and having people just running commands through terminal can be a little daunting when new to Linux. Thank you.
I managed to do a full arch setup on a MacBook Pro 2012 and oh boy it felt solid. Tried then to opencore/legacy patcher a newer version of MacOS and it worked like its native. It's amazing what the community can do
First-person Jeff seems like a great idea! Looks like it lets you get some content you want to get out without major work outside of editing. Whatever makes things easier for you sounds great to me!
I like the FPV. One, it's a nice change of pace, and two, it really makes me feel like I'm experiencing the disappointment firsthand when tinkering (a feeling I'm all too familiar with 😅)
Debian apparently supports old hardware for a very long time. Someone posted a video in the past year or so demonstrating it on a G4 iMac. It's PowerPC (not Intel), but you get the point: If it supports PPC then it seems likely enough to try it on hardware that's a decade newer. If you can work with a different Unix-alike, I think he also demonstrated OpenBSD on even older hardware. NetBSD focuses more on portability, and it seems to go way, way back. Anything that has sufficient horsepower to run X11 can probably do anything you need it to do on your workbench. Network connectivity becomes the bottleneck if the NIC is 10-Base-T. 🙂
While you're probably going to get a better experience with Linux on hardware that old, it's worth pointing out that OpenCore Legacy Patcher does a great job of allowing older Macs to run the latest OS. I have a 2014 one, and it works just fine!
Generally a better option than linux on these machines, particularly with broadcom bcm4360?wifi. Linux cannot really be fine tuned for adequate usage from battery (wifi, webcam, cpu heat etc.)
We've been giving new lives to old Mac's for years this way. It was rare for us to find an old/older Mac at our shop that wouldn't run Linux just fine. We surprised a lot of customers who didn't want to buy a new Mac because their machines didn't run the latest supported version of OSX or MacOS.
Delightful to see that you were able to install Linux on your gorgeous little silver space heater, it will keep you toasty warm during the cold months!
You talk about the regression in laptop design. I think it's because we're less invested in laptops that we were in the early 10's because they sometime were our sole internet devices. Now, we have phones, tablets and for plenty of people, laptops are afterthoughts and manufacturers understand this.
I used to triple boot macOS Mojave (for 32 bit support), Windows 10, and Linux (first Ubuntu, then Solus) on a 2012 13" Macbook Pro for my previous job and it was great. I had macOS for the bulk of my tasks, Windows for doing some hard disk tasks, and Linux for data recovery and such. Worked a treat. Don't really know what to do with it at this point and no-one on eBay seems to want it so I need to figure out what to do with it lol I switched to Fedora over Ubuntu recently and have been really enjoying it. Might be worth a shot!
I installed Fedora 40 on my old Macbook Air 2012 and gave it to my wife, it actually works pretty great, much better than this older version of Ubuntu, it seems. The only downside is that the Broadcom wifi card didn't work right off the bat, so I had to install a driver for it while connected to a WIFI USB dongle, but once installed, it's all set and working great
When you first mentioned the line of gray pixels on your display I wasn't able to see it because it perfectly overlapped with a similar line of gray pixels on my phone :))) What a coincidence :))
I have a mid-2012 (13") MacBook Pro that stopped getting updates for macOS. I didn't want to go the whole "patcher" route, so I opted to install Kubuntu Linux. And man, let me tell you.. It's been awesome! EVERYTHING works. Sound, lighted keyboard, etc. And it runs incredibly fast! I'm happy having breathed new life into an amazing piece of hardware that I didn't want to get rid of.
Being able to set a solid color in the background might be too complicated for the user and didn't you know that having options is bad? And having options goes against their ethos and their holy design so obviously these useless things must go. 😄
Nice video! Highly recommend XFCE as well, and switch off compositing if needed. During install, use the function keys to switch to one of several virtual ttys for access and a better view on what is happening.
Conical is the biggest waste of space I’ve ever seen! but you’ve also inspired me to dig out my old MacBook Pro and see what it’s usability currently is 💜
I love the FPV style idea (for some videos, not all), so it helps getting out videos- especially when you’re short of time, I say: Yes, please! About the iPad - why not get a keyboard and mouse for it? It’s responsive and fair. And maybe you can build (print?) your own laptop attached to a pi 5? (Or even Radxa, if you have an extra?)
Nice video, Jeff - the FPV method worked well. How tricky would it be to swap the HDD for an SSD? Also I wonder how a lighter weight distro might be? Defo life in that old laptop yet!
I like the FPV. Hopefully it was easy for you to make and edit, thus making it easier for make more L2 content. I know we can change our minds but I thought you were steering clear of commercially backed Linux after the RH drama pulled the rug out from under you. Probably not an issue with this particular use case but thought I'd ask what your thinking is.
Canonical hasn't burned my trust as badly as RH did, though they aren't amazing either. I just stick with Ubuntu a lot especially on hardware that may or may not have support from other distros, because it tends to have better out of the box functionality (due to Canonical working closely with a lot of vendors to get good driver support!). I may switch to something else on this laptop though, now that I know how simple it is to install other distros. I thought it would require some kind of 'jailbreak' process!
Weird. I just did this to a MacBook air 2011 today with Manjaro. Worked first time. Wifi, track pad, video acceleration. Plasma runs so much better than macos
I ran discord steaming last night and it went to 60C and the fans hit 6200rpm max speed. So don't use it for that. I am going to repaste the CPU today to see if that helps a little. It didn't crash tho even after 1.5 hours. Linux is solid.
@@YanFaLi acpi_osi=Darwin as kernel boot parameter might help, for fan tuning look up mbpfan. If you use tlp, try setting pcie configuration to powersave. Also: cpu governor to powersave. Just some solutions from internet
I bought a used 2015 Air recently and put Manjaro on it. I was expecting it to be basically a hobby project for a few weeks, trying to get everything working. Instead, I just booted from a live USB stick, installed it, and everything worked out of the box, except for the camera, which required a lot of work... that work being downloading two packages from my software manager. It's crazy how far Linux has come in terms of compatibility on these machines. If you have an old Macbook lying around, put Linux on it! You won't be disappointed.
A device like this is great for simple everyday tasks, for more demanding activities it works great as a thin client to RDP / Parsec / Moonlight to another computer too.
I like the FPV and I'm sure it's easier to film as well. If you plan to do things at your desk, maybe having a second static camera would be nice (but I know it adds extra work in post).
Great format for this kind of endeavor. If you want a real challenge, try installing Linux on an iMac Pro. I've yet to figure it out. When Apple drops OS support for Intel it would be nice to run MacOS in a VM under Linux.
Chrome OS Flex might also be worth a try on older hardware. I have it running on a 2011 11" Air with 2gb of memory and it works pretty well as an internet portal.
This was a really neat experiment. I've got an old MBP that's been collecting dust for a while. I wonder if I can do similar with that one. Also, I'm wondering if instead of stock Ubuntu on this machine if Xubuntu (the version that uses the lighter weight XFCE) might be a smoother experience for that older system. Cool vid!
fpv is definitely acceptable. obviously a fully edited video is preferable, but an extra fpv video that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten because it's so much work to edit? i love it. any video like this i am happy to get! i do think the audio quality could use some improvement, but if using another audio source means enough extra work that we just wouldn't get the video, this is definitely good enough. ubuntu wallpaper - to get a solid color without looking up commands, just open some basic graphics software and make a small canvas and fill it with one color, then set it as your wallpaper - stretched or tiled makes no difference. right-click - i've always used two fingers for right click because having one ambiguous area of the trackpad be the right click just leads to me fat-fingering it all the time and clicking in the wrong spot and causing chaos, lol, so i went two fingered and never looked back. you might like it if you try it!
Jeff, what you're looking for (at least what you mentioned in the video - inasfar as a computer with a keyboard in a nice laptop form factor) is a PineBook Pro. I've had mine for a few years, it runs an RK3399 Hexacore chip and has 4GB of ram and a nice metal unibody chassis reminiscent of apple devices and higher-end ultrabooks. Retail price $299. Other than that, I'm right there with you, there is a distinct lack of nice modern-feeling laptops from the SBC ARM manufacturers, and it's definitely something that could be done with the state of the newer SBCs that have more cores and ram and other features than ever before.
If it's needed for just basic stuff, Ubuntu will work fine. Many will go on tangent (me included) how GNOME is bad for older laptops/machines, but honestly, you don't need more if you are doing smaller tasks on it. If you were going to daily it, I'd swap to a lighter distro (Xubuntu or whatnot). But that's my 2 cents on this. Good video so far. :)
After using it a week or so, I'm thinking about trying something a little lighter weight. The hardware is just so nice, it's a shame Apple doesn't have some form of lighter weight Darwin OS for older machines :P I hate that some people would dump these things as e-waste! They're plenty fast for terminal access, light browsing, and such.
This is so coincidental. For context aquired two 2013 MacBook airs recently and I've been able to repurpose them and reinstall the os on them. Im trying to replaced the ssds and I plan on gifting one to a friend in college bc he has no laptop. It's kinda cursed bc they're running windows 11 but he's more than grateful for something to get by.
I resurrected my 2015 MBP with Linux. First I tried Ubuntu too, but I didn’t get wifi to work. Then I tried Zorin OS, which is based on Ubuntu. The installation was pretty straight forward. Just choose „Install proprietary drivers“ and everything works. And you can choose the Mac like secondary click on the trackpad. You should give it a try!
I like the FPV for Jeff2 videos. The /slight/ wobble from the chest mount is a bit much, maybe the GoPro has some kind of motion smoothing? Overall not a bad format. As for the Linux options, I would consider an XFCE desktop to be a better option.
Disagree. This is not standard on macbooks. Every MBP I've owned supported "right-click" in the bottom corner. It's usually the left corner for some reason, and I switch it to the right corner (cause that makes sense). In almost 14 years of MBP ownership, I have never used two fingers like Jeff does in the video to open the context menu.
@@phpnotasp I did not say it's the default - but it is a very standard setting. 23y of MBP ownerships and I never have seen anyone use "click in bottom right corner" as secondary click. 🤷♂
I'd have gone with a lightweight distro intended for weaker machines with a machine of such vintage. You do have to sacrifice the bling and some functionality but you get a usable machine in the end. AntiX made my old ASUS netbook be pleasant to use again.
always nice to turn an old laptop into a handy terminal. i did the same with my old x1carbon. lightweight and sipping power if i just need to ssh but want a physical keyboard.
Interesting video, bringing old machines back with Linux has been a thing for quite a while. There are lots of older machines that can still be useful, this is kind of a more extreme example which shows that something more mainstream might be very possible. I've done this with a quite old Dell laptop that was fairly high end way back when with a Duo processor and Nvidia graphics. An SSD is the best upgrade. I've had better luck with the Red Hat side of distro world, much more stable in general. I currently use Rocky Linux for everything, which IMHO is the best option for most uses.
lotta older PC's were bottlenecked by the atrocious spinning rust drives in them. I remember the skylake/kaby lake days where consumer laptops were crap outta box because the drives werent feeding the CPU's nearly enough data. I had many people shocked at how well their PC ran after a simple DualChannel + SSD upgrade.
This is an actual POV video. Point Of View. In other words, the view from the eyes of the person in situation. All of those videos that say something like “POV, you’re a chef” and then they show a video of a chef…the creators of those videos don’t seem to know what POV means. They should be staying something like“imagine you are….” Yes, I think the POV format works well in this video.
I did this a few years with a 10y old MBA and discovered that Fedora was a better option that Ubuntu. That may be different now of course. The hardware eventually died so now I am using an M1 MBA with macOS, but hopefully one day I will be able to install Linux again when macOS support stops Also you can always create the boot USB with dd on the Mac
Early 2010’s Macs are really cool. I’ve got a 2011 iMac running macOS 10.12 for which I keep OpenSSL and trusted certificates up to date so I can keep it on the internet. It’s snappier than my “modern” pc running windows 11.
Love the FPV video format ... as long as you don't go crazy with the camera motion 🤮. What if you run an "apt dist-upgrade"? Will that get you into newer territory?
I like this First Person POV video. I don't think it would work for every video, but for videos like this, this would be a great idea!!
To nervous for my taste.
Yeah he walks like the Doom Slayer when on the berserker power up.
I have the same feeling!
But I don't like the audio quality
Gnome is a very *hefty* desktop for such an old device. As others have suggested, a lighter distro like Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Mint is really what you want if you're trying to squeeze more life out of an older device.
Mint is love
KDE is a pretty good choice too, it's base RAM utilization can beat a lot of traditionally light DEs these days, partially because X is so unwieldy compared to Wayland
I would've likely gone LMDE.
@@seshpenguin Plasma might still be too much and even have visual artifacts if your GPU is truly ancient - for example a 32bit(!) CPU with integrated graphics, drivers for which are pre-Gallium... That'd be 2002-2004-ish? Yeah, I've tried Plasma 6 on that. Meanwhile XFCE is doing decently well.
To be fair, a device this old should be running Puppy instead, 😅 but the Debian variant of Puppy really dislikes Ventoy.
I run mint mate distro on my 2008 unibody macbook core 2 duo and 6gb of ram and it is my daily driver for a laptop instead of turning on my space heater of AMD Ryzen desktop. only downside nvidia GPU but still works well on the open source drivers.
i really recommend a lighter system like mint with the mate desktop it will feel relatively fast and plenty good enough to browse the internet watch youtube like this video right now.
one suggestion for the mouse touche and touchegg will make tweaking the trackpad to add gestures easier kinda pain to install and chrome doesn't seem to work but firefox does. (i want my back and forward gesture damit lol)
SSDs make all the difference.. I had a 2012 Pro lying around too. I added an SSD, slapped proxmox on it and voila, "Mom, we have cloud at home". Besides really loud fans when I hit the dual core cpu with heavy loads.
Can never go wrong with flash storage. Even a cheap sata ssd, (and a ram upgrade to 16gb if you feel like it) can breathe new life into older pcs. I remember the difference going from a pitiful 5200rpm drive to an 860, I decided to never go for hdds on my daily devices.
Though I still use larger hdds for archival or nas storage now, as I’m not made of money haha
Can't stand by what you both said enough, an SSD upgrade of any kind is the easiest and best upgrade you can give a computer, and I agree RAM is a nice optional extra. I too don't use mechanical drives on any of my machines now, think my editing workstation has 2 "dormant" HDDs that I wanna get rid of, just has old data from years ago, like my college/uni data, every other drive I use is either NVME M.2 or SATA SSD. My MBP I upgraded to SSD 8 or 9 years ago, and have upgraded my mum's and sister's laptops to SSDs. The only mechanical drives I'm using are 14TB drives in the NAS, but then those have SSD caching drives as a middle man to aid performance since I'm editing directly from the NAS on many projects since setting up a mini 10GBe network in the home office.
cant spell cloud without loud
I mean yes - but i have a 2014 with an SSD and it's god awful slow too. I always find it funny that comptuers were once fast and just though software updates they really slow down over time.
I wouldn't use Ubuntu in an old machine like that. Maybe lubuntu or mint. If you have more knowledge of Linux there's other minimal installations like slack, puppy, etc.
The FPV on what you were doing were one of the best way to expose it to the public IMHO, and it also looks very well. I think more non-scripted, without complex editing, tinkering around videos on this channel would be pretty good, specially if you have something cool to show but not enough to be in the main channel
Thanks; I think I may try it again but hopefully for a more hands-on project; this one did a lot in one spot, but I imagine projects where I head back and forth to the workbench could be even nicer.
Two finger click for secondary click is perfect.
I go for that every single time if device doesn't have trackpoint or similar.
Jeff hating 2 fingers for right click was not on my "cancelling RUclipsrs" list this year, but here we are :P
2 fingers with physically clicking the touchpad is… not great. But 2 finger touch for right-click is pretty good.
No he's right. it's stupid.
@@Tvirus12 Feels great on a modern macbook but idk about this trackpad. But people tend to say it's stupid when they're just not used to something. I feel the same about right clicking with a corner of the trackpad.
two finger right-click, with tab to click is actually perfect
Agreed. I love the two-finger, right-click convention
This! I'm always annoyed why this is not the default! I am really used to tap to click instead of using extra force to push my Dell touchpad.
I thought everyone knew to use "right click," you use two fingers on a mac.
@@graphicsgod This is how I've always done it too, I have an older Macbook (though these days it runs Fedora on it) and I had no clue that there was even a right-click by just pressing the bottom right of the trackpad...
@@graphicsgod same lol
Enjoyed this style of video! Not just FPV, but overall I enjoy this relaxed almost vlog style. Reminds me of good old youtube days.
That's what this channel's all about! Would like to experiment with style, do more lightly-edited videos like old school RUclips, and see what sticks. Also just to get out some video ideas that I know won't "perform" and would harm the stats of the main channel (because love it or hate it, advertisers and the algorithm don't know how to handle content like this channel!).
My recent install of Ubuntu 24.04 on a 2010 MacBook Pro went smooth as goose grease. I installed a new SSD to provide my wife a full back of the original system and never looked back. Once I replace the battery and touchpad (the machine is 14 years old, after all), it will become my knockabout travel machine.
Did you replace the drive before or after installing Ubuntu? I’m looking to do this with my old 2011 MacBook Pro, but I didn’t know if there is a preferred order to adding a new drive and new OS.
@c.r.devries3072 I replaced it before I installed Ubuntu, and set the old one aside by way of backup. No backup can compare with the original.
Good luck and enjoy your revived machine
@@c.r.devries3072 Yes, I did replace the drive to preserve the data on it. It was cheaper, easier, and preserved more data than copying it to a backup drive. Also, I figured that a new drive would outlast the current one
I also recommend upgrading the memory if you only have 4 gig. Upgrades are cheap and cheerful, so you might as well install the memory while you have the machine open.
I look forward to playing DVDs on my next long flight.
Did you replace the trackpad? I was just curious if you have a recommendation since I’m about to do the same..
my Security teacher at the University had a macbook with Ubuntu. Was his daily-drive computer. Despite the "my distro is better" comments, you made a good choice.
How did he solve the cpu heat and battery issue?
I have a early 2015 Mac Air running macOS Monterey version 12.7.6 and tried both Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux Mint 22 without issue. Both OS's worked right out of the box without any noticeable concerns that an update probably wouldn't take care of. Keep up the great videos and reminding me that I have an old laptop! Seems like yesterday I was buying this thing. She may be old, but she's build right!
The two finger thing is wild, because I think that's how I actually do it on macOS, I've never used he bottom corner to right click.
TIL you can do two-finger click on macOS (it's one of the three options!).
@@Level2Jeff This is how I've always done it on the Mac...
Me too, forcing yourself to point a corner in the trackpad instead of just clicking with 2 fingers anywhere is counterintuitive
I am kinda new to macos I use use them only for like last 6 years. I was always windows user and I have associated two finger click as right click on mac and bottom right click as right click on windows so thats funny 😅
@@Level2Jeffyou don’t necessarily need to exert pressure simultaneously with the fingers, just with having 2 resting over the trackpad and pressing with one is enough!
These laptops are fantastic. I did similar - upgraded the SSD, replaced the battery and installed Ubuntu. It is mainly used to play Minecraft on (quite serviceably) when the kids have their friends over. It was really simple. Much easier than buying and managing extra Minecraft licenses… 🙃
Great video! Keep doing these kinds of videos. Would also be nice to have an update later to see how it panned out long term. What I like about these videos is seeing you stumble and it helps to see that y'all are human and encounter issues too.
Fan noise might be mitigated by repasting the CPU, another video idea for level2jeff. Maybe pickup some inexpensive upgrades at the same time if you decide to keep your mbair in service. Good job keeping ewaste out of the landfills!
I am prone to motion sickness so can't watch FPV videos. I just close my eyes, listen to the audio, and periodically open my eyes for a sec to check for something significant.
The FPV suites the style of the video. The extensive narration still allows me to follow the content. Thanks.
+1 First Person POV video! I have a 2012 Mac mini running the latest Linux Mint, A 2013 MBP running Kali Linux (latest) and another 2013 MBP running Win 11. These are my older machines and they refuse to die.
Enable tap to click and two finger tapping is a breeze.
LPT - On the Ubuntu boot screen, whether booting from USB or the internal drive, if you press the delete key, it'll hide the splash logo and show more verbose boot messages.
Good to know; I'm used to Ubuntu/Debian on server with no UI, so I don't have as much knowledge running desktop day to day (especially shortcuts... case in point the two-finger-right-click!).
I thought it was the Escape key. I use Escape all the time. Doesn't DEL just send an escape code, which begins by... Escape, so it sees ESC and displays the verbose log?
@@fixups6536 I remember toggling the screens (console/Plymouth) with arrow up/down.
Not a Mac dude but since that is a dual core ,a lighter distro such as an XFCE like Q4OS might be in order to eek out a bit more performance. Full blown Ubuntu is almost as needy as Windows memory wise.
I'm an happy user of q4os on an old netbook (hp mini 2140), and I'm not an expert and I might be wrong, but it uses Trinity, a KDE fork, not XFCE!
I think Q4OS was running Trinity, a fork of an older version of KDE, not Xfce.
I really love the FPV style. Straight to the point sort of thing. We need more of this content! Sort of cozy in a way!
As you were performing actions I felt my fingers gravitating towards the W,A,S,D keys like I was going to be able to control your direction. Fabulous!
Removing options to make it more "minimal" is why I don't use Gnome for anything anymore. They removed basic stuff at this point like solid background colors. Gnome, you are going too far.
For me, it's Canonical's Gnome and Gnome itself that is frustrating. The old versions that Mint and Mate use are alright since it's based on older versions. Pop!_OS has always felt right for me with their modified Gnome they run in 22.04.
I personally like to use XFCE for a desktop. There's an ubuntu distro Xubuntu that comes with it as default. XFCE stays out of your way and functions like you expect.
@@blahblahblahblah2933 Agree window managers were perfected with Motif. X and a lightweight WM are what God intended.
@@echobucket Being able to set a solid color in the background might be too complicated for the user and didn't you know that having options is bad? And having options goes against their ethos and their holy design so obviously these useless things must go.
The Gnome developers got infected by the apple mind virus of "simple is always better" and "we know what's better for you than you do". They are both incredibly opinionated, and also most people think their opinions are wrong. They are designing for mainstream UX requirements and their users aren't mainstream users.
common issue on the 2010-2017 MacBook Air's is the ribbon cable going bad. This failure can cause these horizontal bars on the screen as the picture shows
Two fingers to right-click is standard on Mac, Windows and Linux
TIL, I didn't even know that existed until making this video.
Don't pressss, Just tap, I was screaming. How did you not know this?
You lost me at "Windows and Linux". I think it's standard just on Mac. Never heard or seen it before watching Jeff's video now.
@@Winnetou17 Do you only use Mac?
@@lepidusthewiser I don't use Mac at all
Just read PCGamers article on the Geerling Radio Barbecue experiment! Lol Awesome that your Dad and you got that kind of coverage! Hotdog speaker anyone? Best summer entertainment ever.
My journey started circa year 2000 installing yellowdog on an ibook clamshell, to turn it into something useful. Tried briefly gentoo, then settled on debian testing and stayed there ever since. So this resonates to me :)
POV for these type videos is great! More please! I have reclaimed 2015 MBPr and am thinking of doing this exact thing.
I can’t help but imagine you holding a GoPro in your mouth for those FPV shots 😂
Haha that would cause some jaw issues!
And Talking at the same time 😂
Your ancient MacBook is mine and my partners daily drivers 😂
What OS do you guys use? And did you upgrade the storage or is it the original one that came with the laptop?
osx big sur, she has a 128gb ssd and I have a 256gb ssd. Only work I’ve done to them really is clean out heat sinks and new thermal paste, still nippy and responsive, as long as you don’t ask the world of it
Definitely a nice format. Very relaxing while I vintage compute at my 2002 PowerMac G4 MDD.
A nice model! I have an MDD I've been restoring/upgrading a while now, and it's running pretty well. Want to try editing an old school 4:3 video on it with Final Cut Express!
I feel like I'm watching Peep Show, inner monologue and everything.
Seeing you have a problem and immediately google it makes me feel better. Watching Linux videos and having people just running commands through terminal can be a little daunting when new to Linux. Thank you.
Love your workshop man very organize
love your studio setup bro
I managed to do a full arch setup on a MacBook Pro 2012 and oh boy it felt solid. Tried then to opencore/legacy patcher a newer version of MacOS and it worked like its native. It's amazing what the community can do
First-person Jeff seems like a great idea! Looks like it lets you get some content you want to get out without major work outside of editing. Whatever makes things easier for you sounds great to me!
I like the FPV. One, it's a nice change of pace, and two, it really makes me feel like I'm experiencing the disappointment firsthand when tinkering (a feeling I'm all too familiar with 😅)
Debian apparently supports old hardware for a very long time. Someone posted a video in the past year or so demonstrating it on a G4 iMac. It's PowerPC (not Intel), but you get the point: If it supports PPC then it seems likely enough to try it on hardware that's a decade newer. If you can work with a different Unix-alike, I think he also demonstrated OpenBSD on even older hardware. NetBSD focuses more on portability, and it seems to go way, way back. Anything that has sufficient horsepower to run X11 can probably do anything you need it to do on your workbench. Network connectivity becomes the bottleneck if the NIC is 10-Base-T. 🙂
Nice vid. How did you record this btw?
Love the FPV video concept!
Ubuntu 20.04 is loosing support in a few months, i recommend that you upgrade to atleast 22.04
*losing. 1 O.
Or activate extended support, which is free for personal use for a few machines. That gives another 5 years, until April 2030.
@@Gramini yes, if use 22.04 until 2032.
While you're probably going to get a better experience with Linux on hardware that old, it's worth pointing out that OpenCore Legacy Patcher does a great job of allowing older Macs to run the latest OS. I have a 2014 one, and it works just fine!
Indeed. However, running Sequoia on a 2015 Macbook Pro is painfully slow.
Generally a better option than linux on these machines, particularly with broadcom bcm4360?wifi. Linux cannot really be fine tuned for adequate usage from battery (wifi, webcam, cpu heat etc.)
This style of video is actually pretty cool. Would love to a video showing how you have this setup, setup.
I love this video. My kind of tinkering! Keep them coming! 🥰
We've been giving new lives to old Mac's for years this way. It was rare for us to find an old/older Mac at our shop that wouldn't run Linux just fine. We surprised a lot of customers who didn't want to buy a new Mac because their machines didn't run the latest supported version of OSX or MacOS.
Delightful to see that you were able to install Linux on your gorgeous little silver space heater, it will keep you toasty warm during the cold months!
You talk about the regression in laptop design. I think it's because we're less invested in laptops that we were in the early 10's because they sometime were our sole internet devices. Now, we have phones, tablets and for plenty of people, laptops are afterthoughts and manufacturers understand this.
I wound up using Xubuntu. I don't think these laptops like Wayland.
I used to triple boot macOS Mojave (for 32 bit support), Windows 10, and Linux (first Ubuntu, then Solus) on a 2012 13" Macbook Pro for my previous job and it was great. I had macOS for the bulk of my tasks, Windows for doing some hard disk tasks, and Linux for data recovery and such. Worked a treat.
Don't really know what to do with it at this point and no-one on eBay seems to want it so I need to figure out what to do with it lol
I switched to Fedora over Ubuntu recently and have been really enjoying it. Might be worth a shot!
I love how post install, Jeff had to leverage google to perform 2 simple tasks. This is the average Linux experience.
Hugh, this a nice change, shows your talent.
I installed Fedora 40 on my old Macbook Air 2012 and gave it to my wife, it actually works pretty great, much better than this older version of Ubuntu, it seems. The only downside is that the Broadcom wifi card didn't work right off the bat, so I had to install a driver for it while connected to a WIFI USB dongle, but once installed, it's all set and working great
When you first mentioned the line of gray pixels on your display I wasn't able to see it because it perfectly overlapped with a similar line of gray pixels on my phone :))) What a coincidence :))
I have a mid-2012 (13") MacBook Pro that stopped getting updates for macOS. I didn't want to go the whole "patcher" route, so I opted to install Kubuntu Linux. And man, let me tell you.. It's been awesome! EVERYTHING works. Sound, lighted keyboard, etc. And it runs incredibly fast! I'm happy having breathed new life into an amazing piece of hardware that I didn't want to get rid of.
I right click on my mac with two fingers 😅
Cool seeing you restore life to a good old MacBook 🙂
the way those fans ramp up so loud that you have to start talking over them, is something to behold
Gnome developers are 100% deaf to user feedback. Indeed. Who removes the option to set a solid color from the GUI...
Being able to set a solid color in the background might be too complicated for the user and didn't you know that having options is bad? And having options goes against their ethos and their holy design so obviously these useless things must go. 😄
Nice video! Highly recommend XFCE as well, and switch off compositing if needed. During install, use the function keys to switch to one of several virtual ttys for access and a better view on what is happening.
My favourite RUclipsr has more channels?! Holy biscuits! :o
by the way I used to had the same Macbook Air and installed Debian 12 on it, was cool
This format is great, keep up the good work
Conical is the biggest waste of space I’ve ever seen! but you’ve also inspired me to dig out my old MacBook Pro and see what it’s usability currently is 💜
I love the FPV style idea (for some videos, not all), so it helps getting out videos- especially when you’re short of time, I say: Yes, please!
About the iPad - why not get a keyboard and mouse for it? It’s responsive and fair.
And maybe you can build (print?) your own laptop attached to a pi 5? (Or even Radxa, if you have an extra?)
Nice video, Jeff - the FPV method worked well. How tricky would it be to swap the HDD for an SSD? Also I wonder how a lighter weight distro might be? Defo life in that old laptop yet!
I like the FPV. Hopefully it was easy for you to make and edit, thus making it easier for make more L2 content.
I know we can change our minds but I thought you were steering clear of commercially backed Linux after the RH drama pulled the rug out from under you. Probably not an issue with this particular use case but thought I'd ask what your thinking is.
Canonical hasn't burned my trust as badly as RH did, though they aren't amazing either. I just stick with Ubuntu a lot especially on hardware that may or may not have support from other distros, because it tends to have better out of the box functionality (due to Canonical working closely with a lot of vendors to get good driver support!).
I may switch to something else on this laptop though, now that I know how simple it is to install other distros. I thought it would require some kind of 'jailbreak' process!
Weird. I just did this to a MacBook air 2011 today with Manjaro. Worked first time. Wifi, track pad, video acceleration. Plasma runs so much better than macos
How are your fans doing?
@@horacegentleman3296 barely audible, but the unibody does get warmish. Apple always had very shallow curves prioritizing noise over heat
I ran discord steaming last night and it went to 60C and the fans hit 6200rpm max speed. So don't use it for that. I am going to repaste the CPU today to see if that helps a little. It didn't crash tho even after 1.5 hours. Linux is solid.
In 2011 they ditched the core 2 duo for the i5 and the i7.
@@YanFaLi acpi_osi=Darwin as kernel boot parameter might help, for fan tuning look up mbpfan. If you use tlp, try setting pcie configuration to powersave. Also: cpu governor to powersave.
Just some solutions from internet
Try replacing the thermal paste and dusting it out, should improve the fan noise. I love seeing old tech get a new life
I bought a used 2015 Air recently and put Manjaro on it. I was expecting it to be basically a hobby project for a few weeks, trying to get everything working. Instead, I just booted from a live USB stick, installed it, and everything worked out of the box, except for the camera, which required a lot of work... that work being downloading two packages from my software manager.
It's crazy how far Linux has come in terms of compatibility on these machines. If you have an old Macbook lying around, put Linux on it! You won't be disappointed.
A device like this is great for simple everyday tasks, for more demanding activities it works great as a thin client to RDP / Parsec / Moonlight to another computer too.
I like the FPV and I'm sure it's easier to film as well. If you plan to do things at your desk, maybe having a second static camera would be nice (but I know it adds extra work in post).
That fan seems excessive. Clean 15 years of dust from the heat exchanger and fan might help a lot?
Great format for this kind of endeavor. If you want a real challenge, try installing Linux on an iMac Pro. I've yet to figure it out. When Apple drops OS support for Intel it would be nice to run MacOS in a VM under Linux.
Chrome OS Flex might also be worth a try on older hardware. I have it running on a 2011 11" Air with 2gb of memory and it works pretty well as an internet portal.
This was a really neat experiment. I've got an old MBP that's been collecting dust for a while. I wonder if I can do similar with that one.
Also, I'm wondering if instead of stock Ubuntu on this machine if Xubuntu (the version that uses the lighter weight XFCE) might be a smoother experience for that older system. Cool vid!
Love the video, you should do one with a more lightweight distribution as a comparison. Would be awesome!
fpv is definitely acceptable. obviously a fully edited video is preferable, but an extra fpv video that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten because it's so much work to edit? i love it. any video like this i am happy to get! i do think the audio quality could use some improvement, but if using another audio source means enough extra work that we just wouldn't get the video, this is definitely good enough.
ubuntu wallpaper - to get a solid color without looking up commands, just open some basic graphics software and make a small canvas and fill it with one color, then set it as your wallpaper - stretched or tiled makes no difference.
right-click - i've always used two fingers for right click because having one ambiguous area of the trackpad be the right click just leads to me fat-fingering it all the time and clicking in the wrong spot and causing chaos, lol, so i went two fingered and never looked back. you might like it if you try it!
Show us a photo of you in the recording rig!! I like the format for smaller, more casual projects like this.
Jeff, what you're looking for (at least what you mentioned in the video - inasfar as a computer with a keyboard in a nice laptop form factor) is a PineBook Pro. I've had mine for a few years, it runs an RK3399 Hexacore chip and has 4GB of ram and a nice metal unibody chassis reminiscent of apple devices and higher-end ultrabooks. Retail price $299. Other than that, I'm right there with you, there is a distinct lack of nice modern-feeling laptops from the SBC ARM manufacturers, and it's definitely something that could be done with the state of the newer SBCs that have more cores and ram and other features than ever before.
Thanks Jeff, I have a few older Mac too. I will use your video as training 😅. Good video as always.
It would be great if you would create more videos about your old Macbook Air. It's interesting and also I really like this POV. Have a nice day.
If it's needed for just basic stuff, Ubuntu will work fine. Many will go on tangent (me included) how GNOME is bad for older laptops/machines, but honestly, you don't need more if you are doing smaller tasks on it. If you were going to daily it, I'd swap to a lighter distro (Xubuntu or whatnot). But that's my 2 cents on this. Good video so far. :)
After using it a week or so, I'm thinking about trying something a little lighter weight. The hardware is just so nice, it's a shame Apple doesn't have some form of lighter weight Darwin OS for older machines :P
I hate that some people would dump these things as e-waste! They're plenty fast for terminal access, light browsing, and such.
@@Level2Jeff Give Xubuntu/Lubuntu a shot, in that case! Hope it works better than Ubuntu ^^
I was also going to suggest Xubuntu or Lubuntu. I run Xubuntu on a Lenovo ideapad 100S-14iBR. It isn't fast, but it is very usable as a Linux laptop.
This is so coincidental. For context aquired two 2013 MacBook airs recently and I've been able to repurpose them and reinstall the os on them. Im trying to replaced the ssds and I plan on gifting one to a friend in college bc he has no laptop. It's kinda cursed bc they're running windows 11 but he's more than grateful for something to get by.
I resurrected my 2015 MBP with Linux. First I tried Ubuntu too, but I didn’t get wifi to work. Then I tried Zorin OS, which is based on Ubuntu. The installation was pretty straight forward. Just choose „Install proprietary drivers“ and everything works. And you can choose the Mac like secondary click on the trackpad. You should give it a try!
love these kinds of test videos, and id want more of the fpv. however maybe a microphone uppgrade? it sounds a little "can" like.
I like the FPV for Jeff2 videos. The /slight/ wobble from the chest mount is a bit much, maybe the GoPro has some kind of motion smoothing? Overall not a bad format.
As for the Linux options, I would consider an XFCE desktop to be a better option.
I'm running Kubuntu, I wish I had thought of xfce myself, I just might have to switch
SSD and repaste will see it right. It’s amazing how useful relatively hardware can be.
Two-finger click is actually pretty standard on macOS.
TIL
It also becomes fairly natural, especially on new models that have solid state touchpads.
Disagree. This is not standard on macbooks. Every MBP I've owned supported "right-click" in the bottom corner. It's usually the left corner for some reason, and I switch it to the right corner (cause that makes sense). In almost 14 years of MBP ownership, I have never used two fingers like Jeff does in the video to open the context menu.
@@phpnotasp TIL that that’s even an option. @tcurdt is right though. Two finger click is the default on macOS.
@@phpnotasp I did not say it's the default - but it is a very standard setting. 23y of MBP ownerships and I never have seen anyone use "click in bottom right corner" as secondary click. 🤷♂
I'd have gone with a lightweight distro intended for weaker machines with a machine of such vintage. You do have to sacrifice the bling and some functionality but you get a usable machine in the end. AntiX made my old ASUS netbook be pleasant to use again.
ChromeOS Flex on my old 8/64-gig MacBook Air works wonderfully.
always nice to turn an old laptop into a handy terminal. i did the same with my old x1carbon. lightweight and sipping power if i just need to ssh but want a physical keyboard.
Imagine if someone makes a compute module for this macbook airs, it could be a tight fit though
Interesting video, bringing old machines back with Linux has been a thing for quite a while. There are lots of older machines that can still be useful, this is kind of a more extreme example which shows that something more mainstream might be very possible. I've done this with a quite old Dell laptop that was fairly high end way back when with a Duo processor and Nvidia graphics. An SSD is the best upgrade. I've had better luck with the Red Hat side of distro world, much more stable in general. I currently use Rocky Linux for everything, which IMHO is the best option for most uses.
lotta older PC's were bottlenecked by the atrocious spinning rust drives in them. I remember the skylake/kaby lake days where consumer laptops were crap outta box because the drives werent feeding the CPU's nearly enough data. I had many people shocked at how well their PC ran after a simple DualChannel + SSD upgrade.
When was the last time you opened it and cleaned the fan and heat sink? Maybe replace the thermal paste
I just achieved the same with my 2015 MacBook Air but instead of Ubuntu, I installed Pop OS. I love upcycling older machines!
This is an actual POV video. Point Of View. In other words, the view from the eyes of the person in situation.
All of those videos that say something like “POV, you’re a chef” and then they show a video of a chef…the creators of those videos don’t seem to know what POV means. They should be staying something like“imagine you are….”
Yes, I think the POV format works well in this video.
I did this a few years with a 10y old MBA and discovered that Fedora was a better option that Ubuntu. That may be different now of course. The hardware eventually died so now I am using an M1 MBA with macOS, but hopefully one day I will be able to install Linux again when macOS support stops
Also you can always create the boot USB with dd on the Mac
Done this operation to my partners old 2010 MBA and my old 2010 MBP. Put Mint Xfce on them and they’re fully usable again. 👍👍
Early 2010’s Macs are really cool. I’ve got a 2011 iMac running macOS 10.12 for which I keep OpenSSL and trusted certificates up to date so I can keep it on the internet. It’s snappier than my “modern” pc running windows 11.
Love the FPV video format ... as long as you don't go crazy with the camera motion 🤮.
What if you run an "apt dist-upgrade"? Will that get you into newer territory?
Haven't been daring enough to try that yet haha. Maybe I will though!
I switched to Mint, it was a lot faster. Great video, thanks.