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Ask HN: Running Linux on an Old MacBook
I have a 2016 MBP sitting in my living room plugged into my projector and audio receiver.

I was thinking about a quick weekend project where I'd turn it into a home cinema Linux box + a basic NAS.

I'm a compulsive yak-shaver/bike shed renovator so before I risk getting stuck tinkering -- what distro/setup do you recommend? Is the process as fiddly as it used to be a decade ago?

You’ve already got it plugged into your projector and audio receiver? Is it not working?

If it’s already working you want the project, you don’t want it to go smoothly (or else you wouldn’t even be considering it) so just pick a distro at random and go nuts.

Do you know me? You sound like you know me. Because that's exactly what I was going to do (with a dash of denial).
I don't recommend it unless you're doing it for its own sake. My 2015 Pro runs much smoother (better performance, less hot) with macOS. You can run these services on macOS too.

The setup wasn't fiddly at all. I had to fiddle much more with ordinary PC laptops. Any distro should be mostly fine - Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch...

  • 1jss
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  • 4 months ago
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If you want it to run smoothly with video streaming and sane thermals/fan noise, I'd leave it with macOS. For NAS I'd instead buy a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 and set it up with an external USB HD and Raspberry Pi OS.
Yeah, looking at the comments this seems like a better way forward. Re the NAS, I bought a bunch of devices in the past but their security was terrible, so I switched to an external USB drive which should make the setup you mentioned trivial. Thanks.
I have a 2014 MBP Retina running Arch and it's now pretty good. It took some tweaking. It does overheat when I try and run HDMI 4K full screen video though. It's not equal to that. It got so hot it turned off.
I recommend Ubuntu because it will be good enough and at least as easy to install as anything else (and easier than many alternatives).