Zorin vs. Mid 2013 MacBook Air 11"

Because of the extremely bad influence of Zorin OS, this Forum's members, and Linux in general, I recently decided I needed an 11" laptop. It would increase my productivity by 35% to leave the 15" laptop at home and tote an 11" laptop with me, thus taking advantage of valuable commute time and other cramped situations where it is impractical or impossible to lug out a behemoth laptop.

I gave myself a budget of $50 and began my search for a used 11" laptop. I must say I thought I would end up with an elderly Windows running laptop, but as ridiculous as it may sound, old Windows laptops in that price range are generally missing the hard drive, have broken screens, look like they have been run over by a truck, or all of the above and then some.

So that is how I ended up with this $55 MacBook Air which looks brand new. Magsafe 2 charger not included, but I already have one. This is the base model 1.3GHz, 4GB ram, 256 flash storage. I really don't know what any of that means except in the most vague and general way, I'm just listing it to show how tiny the computing power of this thing is.

I was hesitant to buy it, not because of the specs which are suitable for my use case (providing a lightweight enough system) but because I didn't know if I could put Linux on it. Though at that price and for what I need it for, I thought if worse came to worse I would just run an obsolete macOS on it and keep it off the internet. But still I did due diligence before the purchase and was pleased to see this model seemed to be able to run Linux. The biggest issues being the wifi, webcam, trackpad gestures, battery drain (which let's face it, nothing but macOS on a MacBook is going to let the battery last that long).

So I have been using it with macOS High Sierra which it came installed with to get a feel for its baseline - performance, battery life, etc. I downloaded Mountain Lion - which this model was released with - and made a bootable to prepare for experimentation, just in case things go south with a Linux install.

So right now I'm writing this on the MacBook Air off charger, testing on the Zorin Live environment. I just used the Core since I had that handy, but I would also like to try out Lite. I have to say it's crazy how great it's performing so far.

First thing to note, right after loading Zorin from the USB, the temperature did go to warm. Not hot, just warm and it stayed at that exact warmness this whole time. In HIgh Sierra it does not seem to get warm. However I am running the live USB and probably stressing it somewhat. Also the battery does seem to be draining faster than on High Sierra. However as this is a Live USB I have not messed with the power management settings etc. So with those out of the way, which I am sure would both be improved with an actual install and adjusted settings..

So first off even though I connected to the internet before loading the Zorin USB, it did not have internet when I started up, and a search for wifi showed me that I had no wifi thingy installed. So I searched for 'drivers' in the Z menu search bar and the result showed me Software & Updates. So I clicked that and then saw a tab in it for 'Additional Drivers' and under that a driver listed for the Broadcom wifi thingy this model has, so I selected that and applied and then opening wifi I was able to see all the networks around me and connect to mine. So I think that means if this was an actual install I would be able to do the same thing and connect to internet because the driver I need is in the package?

The display looks great with Zorin. I did have to turn off the adaptive brightness because it works so well that even a cloud going past the sun and dimming the light coming in from the window would trigger it. This might be normal. I always turn adaptive brightness off everything I have. The keys on the keyboard work to adjust the screen brightness but I'm not sure if that's because it's a live trial.

Also the keys for the volume work. The touch pad works great, maybe a little fast when scrolling in Firefox. I tried to see if some gestures would open like, desktop over view or whatever it is, but no it's just a simple 3 finger swipe up to see workspaces, 2 finger scroll left or right to go thru work spaces, 3 finger scroll up from workspaces to see all apps, 2 finger scroll left or right to go through the pages. I like this much better than on macOS where you have to watch the training videos included to figure out anything. All this is unimportant to me as I use the keyboard to navigate but I did want to test it and report because in my searches prior to purchase it seemed like one of the biggest complaints people had about Linux on MacBooks was the trackpad.

Youtube playback was snappy and looked great. I just can't believe how well this Zorin live environment is running on 4GB ram. It makes me think an actual install would be even better. And I'm really loving how Zorin looks on this beautiful hardware. I normally like orange but this default blue accent looks very nice with it.

System monitor has never shown past 2.7GB but of course I'm not being crazy with it either. Cheese does not see my webcam but from my researches I believe this would be an easy fix if I install Zorin, and this forum could probably point me in the right direction.

Ok I think that's all that someone who is considering Zorin for one of these models might find interesting. If you're needing something to update from your old insecure macOS, make yourself a bootable macOS installer safety net and give Zorin a try. If you have the 4GB ram it will be suitable for light use, with the 8GB model even better.

For my use case, since my workload will be a bit heavier than light and I have to consider my 4GB ram, I had intended to go with antiX, which I have also tried out on live mode and an extremely impressed with. But actually after experiencing how well Zorin Core works on the live mode, I am almost persuaded to do a trial install and see how well I can run the apps I need. I'm wondering if it really makes a difference to install Core or Lite??

Ok so my battery just hit 25%, I was able to tell because the indicator turned orange. I plugged it in and it is charging correctly. But again that might be working because it's a live environment. So that was 2.5 hours of mainly internet use on on a live environment with no special setup by me of power management and the screen brightness and volume on max. The condition of this battery is normal with 389 cycles.

Oh and I forgot to mention when I close the lid, the screen and logo go off and when I open it they come back on.

Ok I think that's everything of note.

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I was surprised that you called a 15" notebook a big boy. I come from a time where 17" to 20" notebooks were considered big boys lol. I do understand you wanting to travel with a smaller lighter notebook however. I was just surprised you went with an 2013 model, but I understand you didn't want to pay several hundred for one.

You are right, were good influencers around here, we help folks to spend their money lol. I admit that I tend to have that effect on people. But personally, I like to help people at the end of the day, I am always there for those who need somebody to talk to.

Back to the computer, it sounds like its capable of doing all that you need it to do. I must admit, 4GB is really low, when it comes to RAM. If you are not a heavy user however, (which you admit that you arn't) 256GB of storage, is more then plenty for your needs.

To be honest, I am really not surprised, that the notebook is using more resources, and getting warmer, under Zorin OS Core. Core is Gnome, and Gnome, likes to push that CPU to 2% with no interaction from you, and suck up that RAM.

But you are right, you can set a lot more settings on Zorin OS, if you simply install the OS. You should be able to fine-tune the OS to function a little lighter on the computer, or simply, install Zorin OS Lite, which is probably what you should be installing on that machine.

We want pictures, we want pictures, we want pictures lol. I await your further report, on how things go. And if this smaller notebook works out for you, for your needs, I will be happy for you. Sometimes, the decisions we make, is all about improving out workflows.


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A few years ago I bought an used Chromebook, very similar in specs to what you have there. I agree that smaller laptops are great for short trips, and is well worth having one around just in case.

It's obviously not as fancy as a MacBook: the screen resolution is quite low and not bright enough to use it outside, it's made of plastic and the CPU is modest. But it's still kicking, the battery lasting a good 6~8 hours still (not bad for a 10+ year old machine).

Having a small machine like that it's a good idea I think, especially when you are on the move. I'm glad that our influence is working :smiling_imp:

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Yes, you were one of the influences I was thinking about...

Well about the 2013 model, the whole purchase was inspired by an 11" $300 Chromebook I had seen on display in a store. From the specs listed on the card next to it, it seemed to be barely more powerful than an advanced calculator and about $250 more than I would want to pay for that hardware.

I had just spent an ungodly amount of money on a birthday present for my niece - for a device which is basically just a vehicle for her to run a $12.99 buck app called Procreate - and I was in a very grumpy mood about spending money. But at the same time I decided I needed an 11" laptop. So I thought, for what hardware that Chromebook had listed, I could take $50 and find a comparable old laptop.

The only requirements I had were - it had to be 11", it had to have a battery that held a charge and was replaceable by the consumer, it had to have at least 1 working USB port, it had to be able to run the couple things I use on the go - basically some text editors, GDevelop and git to push my changes to a USB so I can pull them to my other pcs when at home. Wifi was not strictly necessary as I could use my phone if I needed to look something up, though helpful in the case of copy/pasting vs typing out something I found on my phone. Also a strong consideration was if it had hardware that could run Linux. So the 2013 MacBook Air was the first laptop I saw that fit the requirements in the $50 range.

I was more surprised at the brand than the year. I had expected whatever I ended up with at that price would be very old. But I expected it to be a Windows based machine. I can not believe how much sellers of Windows based machines think their old systems that they stripped of all hardware are worth! I guess it's because they're upgradeable and people that buy old computers probably have a bunch of spare parts hanging around.

I see the 4GB ram as an interesting challenge. For what I need to do it should be plenty, as long as I am saving changes frequently, and closing and reopening documents to clear out the undo history when it starts getting too large. I always have the Macbook Pro to fall back on when I need to do something more intensive while away from home.

Here is a pic I had taken to show my family the extreme size difference between the 15" and 11". Note the 11" is sitting on a towel to protect my 15", so it looks a little higher up than it is. This is with High Sierra on it.

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That is quite fitting since it was a Chromebook with similar specs that inspired my purchase.

I love your battery life! That is one of my concerns of running Linux on the MacBook air. But I'll see how it goes.....

Yeah, Chromebooks these days are barely worth considering anymore. Not new ones, anyway. But I'm also surprised that you got a MacBook for $50. Maybe it's because Apple pulls the plug on software updates much sooner than Windows does? Any way, I think it's a great deal... maybe I should start looking to upgrade my trusty Chromebook.

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I was thinking about that too. People that are fans of Apple won't touch an obsolete Mac because they can't be updated with the latest macOS. Also the Intel ones are very undesirable since the last Intel one was 2019? and Apple will soon be dropping support on Intel Macs. People that like Windows won't touch a Mac in general. So there they sit, unwanted except by fringe cases that are going to use them for ulterior purposes.

Do your due diligence if you find a cheap Mac for sale. A lot of them are not suitable for Linux, mostly the newer models I think. However in my case, as I said, for $55 I would have just worked on the obsolete macOS and not ever connected to the internet to keep it secure if it had not been able to run Linux. It would have still run git and my other apps I use on the go.