Fedora 41 does not stay installed on macbook pro A1281

Hello. I am new to the linux space but long story short after i tried for months to revive this macbook with macos i gave up and tried fedora. I made a macos Ventura vm to make the bootable usb. When i tried to boot the normal live image it showed a bunch of black and white lines (graphical glitches) and i understand that is normal because some of the drivers do not come with the basic installation of fedora. Thus i booted the live image in basic graphics mode. I installed it and when i booted from it once it worked but after that it gave me an error. I will once again repeat the steps and replecate and forward the issue.
I would really appreaciate any advise/help.

Welcome Oliver,

What computer and OS do you have to make a Bootable USB of Fedora 41 Workstation on?

And what version Macbook are you wanting to install Fedora on?

Well i am a Windows user so i am using vmware to make a virtual machine of macos Ventura then in that vm i make a bootable fedora usb with the dmg file from the website.
From what i can tell it is a 2008/09 Macbook pro 15 inch, the latest version of macos it supports is el capitan but i would like to install fedora on it i think it would make it a useable entertainment/lite work pc. And i am aware of the wifi and graphics drivers needing to be installed separetly but i would like to install a stable fedora os first.

Cool.

You don’t need to spin up a VM, you can download Fedora Media Writer for Windows from Release 5.2.3 · FedoraQt/MediaWriter · GitHub that is the site linked from fedoraproject.org downloads. I would recommend making your bootable USB with Fedora Media Writer.

Alright but dont i need to use the osx dmg image in order to install it on a mac pc? so i just use the normal windows exe file i make a usb and it should be okey? I will try it now once it creates the usb i will report back in with more information.

One of my Fedora installations is on an older MacBook, and it’s working just fine, given the age (Intel chip, nvidia GPU).

I would expect Fedora to work on a 2011 MBP as well, maybe with a couple of adjustments.

We would need for you to give details about the edition of Fedora used for installation, as well as the error message you encountered after the installation.

Did you wipe MacOS before installing Fedora? It is recommended that MacOS is kept alongside Fedora for firmware licensing issues, as well as fallback in case of other issues.

I case you’ve kept MacOS, how did you partition the drive?

Is your GPU AMD or nVidia? There is an issue with older nVidia chips which make Fedora 41 unable too boot into graphical session, but there is a workaround for it.

No, you do not need the DMG. Your easiest solution to make a bootable USB is to use FedoraMediaWriter-win64-5.2.3.exe from your Windows machine.

However…
It may infact support 64bit according to Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8700 and https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/Core_2_Duo_Mobile/P8700_(Socket_P).html WHich is great :slight_smile:

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I am using the latest Fedora media writer from the github link.
Yes I will provide more information as i go.
Yes mac os was completely wiped from the hdd and a ssd i had was installed but i could not install macos back.
From what i can tell its an nvidia gpu i will sent more detailed specs if i am able to find them.

To make sure you’re using the right tools and also get familiar with some of the concepts used by Fedora and Linux in general, you can take a look at Fedora docs and in particular at Quick Docs.

It would be nice if you’re able to identify your MBP model from this page, to see its specs.

So i installed Fedora 41 on basic graphics mode and it said this:
Unexpected return from initial read: Not ready, buffersize 0
Failed to load image : Not Ready
start_image() returned Not Ready
Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\grubx64.efi - Not Found
Failed to load image : Not Found
start_image() returned Not Found, falling back to default loader
And then it just loops.
I am attaching all relavent images and the issue when i tried to load into the normal live image and specs. The cpu is a Intel core 2 duo P8600 which supports 64bit. Also i am getting som graphical glitches but that may simply be a fix of installing the relevant drivers. I also figured out it is this macbook it either has a 9400M or a 9600M GT. I had to remove the specs because the website says i can only emebbed 3 images at once.



What happens when you hold down ‘options’ key when booting?

You failed to mention what edition of Fedora are you installing, but I assume it is Fedora Workstation 41. If so, a few changes were introduced with GNOME47, shipped with Fedora 41, which cause graphical issues and often blank screen.

Given that one of my test systems is running Fedora 41 on and old MacBook 2008 (updated from Fedora 39 and then 40), with similar graphics card as yours, I would say it is still possible to make your MBP usable with Fedora, but there are a few additional steps involved. Be advised though that 4GB DDRAM3 is the bare minimum, but nevertheless can be used for casual browsing etc[1].

I see a couple of options:

  1. If you manage to run the Anaconda installer from the live ISO (given that you have some sort of graphical interface), then perform the installation, and afterwards set the environment variables as outlined below.
  2. If you don’t manage to install Fedora Workstation 41, you could try installing Fedora Workstation 40, then set the environment variables outlined below, then run a system upgrade to Fedora 41 (not an easy task for a beginner, see documentation for details).
  3. Somewhat easier than step 3 is to install Fedora Silverblue 40, given that the upgrade to a new major version is easier on atomic desktops. You’ll have to get familiar with atomic desktops, and make sure this is something you’re willing to experiment with. After installing F40 Silverblue, set the environment variables, then upgrade (rebase) to F41, following the steps in the documentation.
  4. If you don’t prefer a GNOME based edition, then you can try installing Fedora KDE 41 spin (or the atomic variant Kinoite), which doesn’t seem to have the same issues.

Should you stick with GNOME (so installing either Workstation or Silverblue), the graphical issues might go away by setting a few environment variables. In a terminal, you would need to run the following 3 commands (at the steps detailed above):

echo 'GSK_RENDERER=gl' | sudo tee -a /etc/environment >/dev/null
echo 'MUTTER_DEBUG_DISABLE_TRIPLE_BUFFERING=1' | sudo tee -a /etc/environment >/dev/null
echo 'MUTTER_DEBUG_USE_KMS_MODIFIERS=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/environment >/dev/null

The first command fixes some issues that old nVidia cards encounter with GTK4 apps and newer GTK graphics renderers, the next two fix some Mutter issues, again in connection with old graphics cards.

Good luck!


  1. A MacOS firmware upgrade makes it possible to install 2x4GB DDR3, but this is not an option anymore, given that you wiped out macOS. ↩︎

There may be an issue with installing f41 on that machine.
The GeForce 9600M gpu seems to only be supported by the nvidia 340 driver and the 340xx driver is no longer available for use on f41. Also, the older nvidia drivers (470 and older) do not support wayland but require the X11 DE which was removed from Workstation f40 and newer.

This from the nvidia.com site

My old MacBook’s GPU was also supported by the 340xx driver, but never got it working, so relying on the nouveau drivers since F39. With such old hardware it gets more and more difficult to make it working after each new Fedora release, but being just a spare system, I am upgrading as long as I can for testing purposes. F41 still usable with the workarounds mentioned in my previous post.

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If you can’t get macOS to work a hardware issue should be ruled out. Have you tried Apple diagnostics formerly known as Apple Hardware Test? The MacBook Pro I had at work came with a diagnostic optical CD or DVD (don’t recall which).