this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It's pre-T2, so it should be very easy to install a Linux distro on it. The only bit of misery you're going to encounter, as others have said, is the Broadcom drivers. Except for a select few distros, you'll probably need a USB Ethernet adapter for installing the operating system and adding the drivers.
Also, I'd rather put my hand in the circle saw than try running a rolling release on this laptop because the driver uses DKMS, meaning that kernel updates sometimes break it.
I only know this because the desktop I'm typing this on has a Broadcom Wi-Fi card from when I used to bare metal Hackintosh this machine. I've since moved to a nice house with an Ethernet port in every room; also, I just use macOS in a VM these days anyways.
As others have said, OCLP is a thing and a well-oiled machine from what I hear, but also, the oath I have made to the Church of Linuxology demands that I at least recommend Linux.
I have not had a problem with the WiFi on EOS. It installs fine out of the box.
If you are worried about it breaking, just install both an current and an LTS kernel. If current ever breaks, just boot into LTS. After a couple of days, boot into current again because it is probably fixed.
I have had the FaceTimeHD camera break for a few days before. That is why I run two kernels.
I always just booted the old kernel when I ran into the issue, but it was less than ideal, which is why I would prefer to run a stable distro in this case.
Also, isn't ElementaryOS a stable distro anyway due to being Ubuntu-based?
I have not used Elementary in a long time. More “static” than stable though I would say. And you may have a problem with app selection.
It is less of a problem these days with things like Distrobox and Flatpak that you can use to expand your application selection.
I mean, I think static is stable.
I feel like stability in some contexts means more than just the software not crashing often (although that is the big part); it means being able to expect the behavior to stay the same until you’re ready to upgrade to the next release and confront the new behavior all at once, sort of like upgrading Windows XP to Windows 7.
There’s certainly a place for rolling release - I use Debian Testing on my desktop - but I certainly appreciate being able to go a month without opening my laptop without getting a daunting notification like “There are 1578 updates available “ (on my Debian 12 Thinkpad, it’s usually only double digit, very minor updates).
Stable should mean that it runs stable, runs without crashing. In most Linux distros though, stable means “not changing”. That is not the same thing.
So, Debian Stable can ship software with a design problem that makes it prone to crashing. That problem can be solved in a newer version (more stable) but Debian will continue to ship the older version (the crashy one) because that is what stable means to Debian.
A good example is that Debian Trixie is about to ship with NVIDIA drivers from a year ago that have problems with Wayland. There are newer drivers that work better. But Debian will ship the old ones.
Static and stable are not the same thing.