From macOS to Ubuntu: Reviving a 2013 MacBook Air the Right Way

Image of Canonical Ubuntu

I have a MacBook Air that’s been around for more than a decade. Hardware-wise, it’s still perfectly usable — light, portable, keyboard feels great, screen is decent enough. The problem was never the hardware.

The problem was macOS.

After a recent reformat, I finally decided to stop forcing this machine to live in the past and installed Ubuntu 24.04 LTS instead.

This wasn’t a decision driven by curiosity or distro-hopping. It was driven by frustration — and security concerns.

The macOS Wall I Eventually Hit

Apple has long moved on from this generation of MacBooks. The latest macOS versions no longer support it, which by itself might be acceptable… until it starts breaking basic things.

The real breaking point for me:

Google Chrome could no longer update
Modern apps started dropping support
New versions demanded a newer macOS
Security patches were effectively frozen

When your browser — the most exposed piece of software on your system — can’t be updated anymore, that’s no longer an inconvenience. That’s a risk.

I can tolerate old UI, but not running unpatched software.

That was the last straw!!

This Wasn’t Just an OS Replacement — It Was a Full Refresh

Switching to Ubuntu wasn’t just about replacing macOS. It genuinely felt like refreshing the entire machine.

Same hardware.
Completely different behaviour.

Ubuntu is significantly more lightweight on this old MacBook Air. Boot times are faster. The system feels more responsive. There’s no sense of the OS constantly fighting for resources in the background.

macOS, especially toward the later years, felt heavier with every update — more services, more restrictions, less control.

Ubuntu feels lean. Purpose-built. Direct.

Performance Gains Without Touching the Hardware

What surprised me most was how much performance I got back purely through software:

Faster boot and shutdown
Lower idle CPU and memory usage
No unnecessary background processes
System remains responsive even under load

There was no SSD upgrade.
No RAM upgrade.
Just a better-suited operating system.

For older hardware, efficiency matters far more than visual polish.

Updated Software Again — Without Artificial Limits

The biggest relief after the switch?

Everything updates properly again. Browsers, packages, libraries — all current, all patched.

No more:

“Requires newer macOS”
“This version is no longer supported”
Being stuck on vulnerable builds

On Ubuntu, updates aren’t gated by hardware age. If it runs, it runs — and it gets security fixes.

That alone justifies the migration.

Still Unix, But With Real Control

Yes, macOS is Unix-based — but it’s a curated Unix.
Ubuntu is Unix without the leash.

As someone who’s been in systems and network engineering for years, this matters a lot.

With Ubuntu, I get:

Full OS-level control
Real package management
No vendor lock-in
No hidden system limitations

And if I want to go further, I can.

A Hackable Workhorse Instead of a Consumer Device

This is the part I genuinely enjoy.

If I wanted to, I could:

Install Ubuntu Server
Run containers and services
Deploy open-source tooling
Turn this into a portable lab
Build, break, rebuild — endlessly

Everything that matters in my line of work runs comfortably on Linux:

Open-source infrastructure tools
Network utilities
Automation scripts
Development environments

This laptop is no longer a “consumer device”.

It’s a hackable OS playground.

In many ways, it feels like running a hack OS — something you shape entirely around your workflow, not the other way around.

Why This Move Actually Makes Sense

For someone outside tech, this might look like “Linux on an old laptop”.

For me, it’s more than that.

It’s:

Control over my environment
Freedom from forced obsolescence
A system aligned with how I actually work

Apple made their decision years ago. That’s fine.

I made mine now.

Instead of letting software obsolescence decide the fate of perfectly capable hardware, I chose an OS that still respects it.

Ubuntu didn’t just revive this MacBook Air — it unlocked it.