How to solve wi-fi problem on Macbook Air mid 2013? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago by muhyb@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/38558693

We have a Macbook Air mid 2013 and no matter what distro I tried, making wi-fi work was pain due to Broadcom drivers and not having ethernet port. Basically had to install the drivers via phone tethering.

However, probably because of the drivers, there are certain problems like disconnecting out of blue or really slow connection or cannot reconnect unless reboot the PC.

So I want to ask, if you have this Macbook and have Linux installed, which distro you're using it with? How is it?

Recently I installed Bazzite on a home computer and printers, Xbox controller, iPhone connection, everything the owners need worked out of the box. I'm wondering, would it also work fine with this Macbook too?

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[-] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 19 hours ago

Is your wi-fi adapter also BCM4360? That's the one this Macbook has and no distro recognized it including Mint. Though this Macbook has i5, maybe they're kinda different?

[-] oshu@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

lspci says I have a BCM4360 (rev 03). I can tell its loading a 3rd party driver because I see a warning about it tainting the kernel in my dmesg output.

Note that I'm not running regular Linux Mint, but LMDE which is Linux Mint based on plain Debian instead of Ubuntu. Both are available on the Linux Mint site.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago

Hmm, same adapter then. Haven't tried LMDE to be fair, but would it really be different from regular Mint regarding drivers?

[-] oshu@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago

They are based on different kernels and what I can tell you is that I tried a few distros and either or both the trackpad and wifi were not working.

LMDE was the first distro I tried that just worked. I didn't try the mainline Mint first because I like debian. I'm running enlightenment as my desktop and terminology as my terminal.

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS. LMDE is based on Debian Stable. Different kernels. So yes, drivers may be different.

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025

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