How do you lure your kids off iPhones? Give them MacBooks…running a “cool” version of Linux. Snagged 2 old Airs for just €50 each. Wiped macOS, & installed @elementary - a clean, distro that feels familiar to macOS users but comes with a lot less bloat. Now they’ve got “cool” Apple gear, with the the rich world of #Linux that respects their freedom and sparks curiosity. Kids 1, Dad 1 Win-Win #opensource #linux #elementaryOS #macbook #apple
If these Macbook Airs are from 2011/2013 (I expect so, based on the prices you mentioned), you might need to buy a usb wifi btw. The Linux driver, and the official broadcomm driver is buggy with latest versions of the kernel. On my mid-2011 macbook air there would be a crash when downloading lots of data (e.g. when updating the system), and on my 2013 one, it wouldn’t wake up from sleep. Both issues were due to the buggy wifi driver. So I bought a tp-link super tiny usb wifi stick, and it works out of the box (I had to blacklist of course the broadcomm drivers before).
One last thing is that Elementary requires 1.2 GB of RAM to boot up, and these machines usually come with 4 GB. Make sure you have created a 4 GB swap file in there. Alternatively, Linux Mint can be made to boot up at 750 MB of RAM after removing some services. Either way, make sure you have created a swap partition.