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

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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?

Edit: I added these to a blocklist, which I created here >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl.conf

This is for BCM4360 adapter.

blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist bcma
blacklist brcm80211
blacklist brcmfmac
blacklist brcmsmac
blacklist ssb

For now, it seems fine but need more time to see if the problems are actually gone. At least the reception issue is gone I guess.

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[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 3 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I have a 2013 MacBook Air running EndeavourOS. Works perfectly out of the box.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

To be fair I haven't tried this even though it's what I use on my PC. I don't want to install a rolling-release because I'm not the person who will use it. Though I'll try live ISO out of curiousity.

[-] Moss_the_TeXie@rheinneckar.social 3 points 1 day ago

@muhyb
I have a MacBook Pro 13" late-2013 running Cinnamon (Mint based I think) and I had to install some arcane binary driver package to enable WLAN. Can’t remember now which chipset and which driver but I’ll recherche and get back to you. Please ping me if there’s no answer this week.

Mint Cinnamon still isn’t the OS of choice as it confuses sleep levels on this machine.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Thanks for the reply! Currently it seems to be fixed with blacklisting but we'll see if there will be any issues. Someone else mentioned that Mint can install required drivers on its drivers program (by connecting the Macbook via phone tethering).

Could you perhaps check which adapter your Macbook has? The one we have has BCM4360.

[-] oshu@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I have a 2013 i7 Macbook Air and everything "just works" with the latest Linux Mint Debian Edition, including wifi and both usb ethernet and thunderbolt ethernet.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 day 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 3 points 1 day 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 2 points 20 hours ago

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

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

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

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

That makes sense. Still, if LMDE works out of the box where regular Mint doesn't, I'll be surprised.

[-] oshu@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours 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.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

That's interesting. I'll try this. It's also good on the long run because it's a slow update system like Debian, I can think this as an alternative to what I initially planned with an immutable distro.

[-] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

I want to preface this by saying I've never owned or used a Macbook.

But most of what I've read online regarding Linux on Macbooks ends up with Linux Mint. And most of the time, peoeple specifically mention it because of Wi-Fi issues being resolved.

I'm not sure if there's any additional steps or anything, but I hope this can somehow be useful to you.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I noticed that too. Though the reason I haven't installed it was that I already installed specifically a immutable distro because of the person who will use it. However I also tried Mint as a live ISO to see if that has the driver pre-installed, it didn't. Later I thought, if this is the same proprietary driver, distro choice won't matter. Then I found about blacklisting.

this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025

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