A Very "Mac" Situation

from WinCustomize Forums

So I recently inherited a gently used 2013 MacBook Air. I figure it will be useful for word processing and small spreadsheets. It has a dual-core Intel Core I5 CPU, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and a 256GB SSD. I wanted to ask everyone what operating system they would choose to run. Right now it's running MacOS Big Sur. From what I have read, Big Sur does not work well on 4GB of RAM. It's a big sluggish. My choices are MacOS Mojave, MacOS Catalina, or a flavor of Linux such as Ubuntu, Mint, or Elementary. 

If I could I would just natively install Windows 10 and use that. 

Personal Computing Type: Discussion
1,041 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I'd skip Mojave and Catalina. Going backwards gets you a bit of speed and loses you the browser, Chrome already stopped updating on both, and a browser is most of what you'll use it for.

I live in Fedora but I'd put Mint on this one, the Xfce edition with 4GB. LibreOffice is fine for word processing and small spreadsheets.

Only catch is the wifi. Those Airs have a Broadcom chip that needs the proprietary driver. Mint's Driver Manager handles it, but keep a USB ethernet adapter or a phone tether nearby in case it wants to download.

And you can put Windows 10 on it, Boot Camp supports that model. I just wouldn't do a fresh install of 10 now that it's out of support.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I once installed Win 10 on an old MacBook and the experience was mediocre due to missing drivers. It was a better typewriter, not more.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I have installed Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Windows 10 on a 2013 Macbook Pro with the same hardware. I used Apple's Boot Camp to dual boot Windows 10 and MacOS. For Ubuntu and Linux Mint I wiped the drive and did a clean install. Windows 10 was OK but slightly sluggish. Ubuntu and Linux Mint worked extremely well, they both felt like it was a new computer. I ended up using Linux Mint. Many months later it is still working great.
Before starting I searched Google for instructions. I don't have the links anymore, but they were easy to find and follow.