Install Linux Mint on Your Intel MacBook (2026 Guide) | Dr. MacBook Thailand

Apple’s decision to end macOS support for Intel Macs leaves millions of perfectly capable machines facing obsolescence. The 2020 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are only five years old — fast, well-built machines with years of life left in them. Linux Mint is the answer: a polished, beginner-friendly operating system that breathes new life into your hardware, free of charge.

PART 1 Why Linux Mint? Why Not Just Buy a New Mac?

A new MacBook starts at around $1,299. Linux Mint is free. If your 2020 Intel Mac still runs well — and it almost certainly does — there’s no good reason to replace it just because Apple decided to stop sending it software updates.

Linux Mint is specifically designed to be familiar to people switching from Windows or macOS. It has a traditional desktop with a taskbar, app launcher, and file manager that will feel natural immediately. It’s fast, stable, and receives regular security updates. It’s the distro we’d recommend to any Mac owner making their first Linux move.

PART 2 The T2 Chip — Why You Need a Special ISO

Every Mac sold from 2018 onward contains Apple’s T2 security chip. This chip handles the keyboard, trackpad, webcam, Touch ID, encrypted storage, and secure boot. The problem: standard Linux ISOs have no drivers for the T2, meaning if you install vanilla Linux Mint, your keyboard and trackpad won’t work at all during setup.

The solution is T2-Mint — an open-source project that packages Linux Mint with Apple T2 drivers pre-installed. It’s maintained by the t2linux community and has been updated regularly since 2020. The latest release as of March 2026 is v6.19.8-2.

Download T2-Mint from the official GitHub releases page:
github.com/t2linux/T2-Mint/releases

PART 3 What Works and What Doesn’t

Set your expectations before you begin. Here’s the honest picture of hardware compatibility on 2020 Intel MacBooks:

For most everyday use — browsing, coding, documents, media — everything you need works well. Touch ID and Thunderbolt are the main losses, and most users find they don’t miss them.

PART 4 Before You Begin — Back Up Everything

This guide installs Linux Mint alongside macOS (dual boot), so you keep the choice of booting into either system. However, partitioning always carries risk. Back up your Mac with Time Machine before doing anything else.

• Back up with Time Machine — plug in an external drive, open System Preferences → Time Machine, and create a full backup
• Know your Apple ID credentials — you’ll need them if you ever need to restore macOS
• Have a USB drive ready — at least 8GB. It will be completely erased during this process
• Charge your MacBook — keep it plugged in throughout the entire installation
• Download T2-Mint ISO — from github.com/t2linux/T2-Mint/releases

PART 5 Step-by-Step Installation

Follow these steps in order. Don’t skip ahead.

Step 1 — Shrink your macOS partition

Open Disk Utility → select your main drive → click Partition. Shrink the macOS partition to make room for Linux. A minimum of 30GB for Linux is recommended; 60GB+ is more comfortable.

Step 2 — Write the ISO to your USB drive

Open Terminal and run the following commands. Replace diskX with the actual disk number of your USB drive (find it with diskutil list):

This will take several minutes. Wait until the command completes before removing the drive.

Step 3 — Allow booting unknown OS in Recovery Mode

1. Shut down your MacBook completely
2. Hold Cmd + R while pressing the power button to boot into Recovery Mode
3. Open Startup Security Utility from the Utilities menu
4. Set security to No Security and allow booting from external media
5. Restart normally

Step 4 — Boot from the USB drive

Insert your USB drive. Restart and immediately hold the Option (⌥) key until the boot picker appears. Select EFI Boot — it’s typically the third option. This boots into the Linux Mint Live environment.

Step 5 — Install Linux Mint

1. Once the Linux Mint desktop loads, double-click Install Linux Mint
2. Choose your language and keyboard layout
3. On the installation type screen, select Something else to manually set up partitions
4. Select the free space you created earlier and add an ext4 partition mounted at /
5. Leave the EFI partition as pre-selected by the installer (do not reformat it)
6. Swap partition is optional — useful if you have 8GB RAM or less
7. Click Install Now and follow the prompts for timezone, username, and password
8. Wait for installation to complete, then click Restart Now
9. Remove the USB drive when prompted

Step 6 — First boot into Linux Mint

Hold the Option key on startup again. You’ll now see a new EFI Boot entry for Linux. Select it. From now on, you can choose between macOS and Linux at every startup by holding Option.

PART 6 Post-Install: Setting Up Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi requires firmware files from your macOS partition. This is a one-time setup that takes about five minutes. The t2linux community maintains a detailed guide at wiki.t2linux.org/guides/wifi/ — follow it exactly.

In short, you’ll copy the Broadcom Wi-Fi firmware files from your macOS installation into the Linux firmware directory, then reload the driver. Once done, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both work reliably.

PART 7 Optional: Remap Your Keys

By default, the Mac keyboard uses Apple layout mappings. You can remap the Fn, Ctrl, and Option keys to behave more like a standard PC keyboard by creating a config file:

All available key remapping options are documented at github.com/free5lot/hid-apple-patched.

PART 8 Is It Worth It?

If your 2020 Intel MacBook is your daily driver and you use it primarily for web browsing, documents, coding, or media — yes, absolutely. Linux Mint is a polished, fast, and free operating system that will keep your hardware productive for years beyond Apple’s cutoff date.

The only real limitations are Touch ID and Thunderbolt, and a slightly fiddly Wi-Fi setup. Once configured, it runs beautifully. Many users report that Linux actually feels faster than macOS on the same hardware, particularly on 8GB RAM machines.

• Good for: everyday computing, web, email, coding, LibreOffice, media playback
• Think twice if: you rely heavily on Apple-exclusive apps (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Xcode)
• Remember: dual boot means you keep macOS — you’re not giving anything up permanently