Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
It is widely accepted that, though Apple’s hardware has suffered from several noteworthy glitches over the years —including keyboard woes on laptops— in general it does seem to offer quite a high standard of quality. It is not uncommon for 10-year old computers to still work fine. They are typically relegated to less demanding tasks such as text processing; we will be using our most recent machine for video editing. But, much like an old and beaten-up truck, they can often still do a fair day’s work. Obviously, having a long lifespan is all for the best for the original owner’s finances as second-hand Macs still command a certain market value while in good condition, but can also be a win for sustainability since natural resources are consumed more slowly and electronic waste is generated more slowly.
I am the happy operator of 2006 to 2011-era Macbooks that I have acquired over the years. Quite honestly, the original cost has been largely paid off so whatever extra use I can get out of them is pure profit. The one I do worry a bit about, however, is the more recent Macbook Air I got just last year.
Maintaining a computer in a reasonable shape of tune can be seen as a balancing act between hardware and software. The main driving force behind augmenting hardware speed is not the boards and chips themselves, but rather the applications that need to run on them. Application requirements both for pure processing capability (CPU speed) and quick access to data has been steadily on the rise. Some prime “culprits” in this sense are the web browsers through which many of us perform tasks that need to get done for our jobs or other activities. But, in the modern world, running an out-of-date browser is simply not an option.
How does this relate to Apple’s line-up? Apple’s OS-X or Mac OS is not a bad operating system by any metric. It is largely based on stable BSD components and has been fine-tweaked for the hardware it runs on — this being one of the advantages of making both your own computer and its software. The price is right —as in free for Apple hardware— and upgrades are regularly available. However, it would not be reasonable to expect a business to support a specific hardware design for all eternity. We may not like this, but it is a fact. Internal resources are required to maintain a piece of software, and to ensure compatibility with the hardware platforms. So, whenever we buy a computer, it is a question of time that this specific design will no longer be supported by software manufacturers.
Apple’s stance on this has actually been reasonable. Hardware support has, in practice, been for a minimum of five years, and often closer to the seven-year mark. For many users, this is about the time they would be considering a new computer, in any case. But, this is quite a hard limit, and it is not Apple’s fault but rather that of other software developers. Most applications are designed for a specific version of the operating system, or two or three at most. This is also one reason why many applications need to be upgraded each time the operating system itself gets a bump. So, when the computer gets shut out of the operating system’s renewal cycle, many applications will also cease to be upgradable. These include, specifically, many web browsers. They also include open-source applications that we are used to as Linux users, but that can also be advantageous to run on Apple’s products from a price standpoint — and can also be of use to ensure file compatibility in mixed environments where some users run Linux and others Mac OS.
This is where a Linux distribution can come in handy. Once our Mac no longer receives operating system updates, installing Ubuntu (or my favourite, Kubuntu) can be a viable option. Recent versions have great support for the Mac’s EFI boot, WiFi cards and keyboard layouts, so switching operating systems should be well within an average user’s comfort zone. (With some caveats: if you do go down this route, please remember to have a backup copy or two of all your data… just in case. Also, do not install a new operating system on your daily driver!)
Seen from this perspective, we would seem to have solved the problem of lengthening an Apple product’s lifespan. Thus, we may even be closer to justifying its (admittedly) rather high price-point, specially on more recent products.
Unfortunately, things are not quite as rosy. Hardware specifications some ten years back were not quite at the same level as for modern computers. A Macbook Pro from 2011 had only 4 GBytes of RAM, and a rotational 500 GByte hard drive. The RAM specs are low for today’s standard, both as regards quantity (16 GBytes would be reasonable today) and as regards speed. We should not lose track of the fact that RAM speeds have evolved, and are a critical part of a computer’s throughput since all data needs to be written to and read from RAM at some point. RAM can be replaced, however, and this same computer can be upgraded to 8 GBytes of RAM and a faster SSD hard drive. The operation can be carried out by any tech-savvy user, since the laptop’s bottom panel is simply held in with ten Philips 00-head screws.
For an older 2006 white Macbook, the original 1 GByte of RAM does not quite cut it. But I was able to upgrade the RAM to 3 GBytes and put in another SSD hard drive, making it a usable machine with Enlightenment OS version 6 (Odin). I have even managed to run both Google Drive in a Web browser and Gimp at the same time in the writing of this article, which goes to show that for simple tasks, 3 GBytes of RAM can be sufficient. The processor fan can get loud, though, when the spell checker kicks in.
To our point, older Apple products may still have some life left in them — but only if some of the hardware can be upgraded to a level approaching modern standard. Nothing can be done for the CPU in most cases, both this should not deter us from expanding RAM sizes or switching the hard drive to a newer model.
Sites handling NOS (New-Old Stock) computer parts may be able to help out to find us memory chips suitable for these older computers. Do be aware, though, that some parts are getting harder to find as time goes on, and prices can be high as a consequence.
As for more recent Apple products, things may get more complicated. Access is considerably reduced through the use of glue and snap-together components. iFixit’s teardown videos can be of help to assess the actual difficulty in taking one of these computers apart. They even give a “repairability score” that is also relevant to upgrading. Physical access to a hard drive or to a RAM slot is quite often no longer within the skill level of an average user, but rather that of a technician with some experience in handling a heat-gun. This may conceivably deter most users from even trying to
It should also be mentioned that, in many of these products (iMac models come to mind), there has been an increasing tendency to solder components such as RAM or (more recently) hard drives directly to the motherboard, which does make upgrading something of a mission.
Additionally, there are still some hardware compatibility issues to be addressed with drivers for recent Macs, specifically for the USB subsystem. So, access to the onboard keyboard, trackpad and WiFi hardware does not work out-of-the-box, though an external keyboard and mouse do allow installation to take place. I would expect this problem to be solved going forward as the Linux kernel evolves to support this newer generation of hardware.
So, will extending a Mac’s lifespan by switching to Linux be a viable option in the mid-term, say when current Apple models get on to the 5-to-7 year range?
In all fairness, Linux will probably still run on these models. Perhaps sticking to an LTS version of Ubuntu with a longer support period would be wise. Also, trying to find models with larger quantities of RAM may be a good bet to avoid running short: anything with 8 to 16 GBytes should be fine for the next five years, perhaps slightly more. As for hard drives, probably the best route would be to replace the onboard hard drive not with another —which, as stated, may not even be an option for drives that are soldered-on— but with an external disk. Ports are available ranging from Thunderbolt to USB 3 (or even the newer USB-C connector), which allow us to boot the computer from an external drive at speeds that would have been the province of internal drives only some years ago. Although having an external enclosure hanging off our computer may not be specially nice or even convenient if on the move, such a system can work quite well for computers that are used on a desktop in a fixed place. This setup could even allow us to retain the original operating system on the internal drive as a failsafe, at least until we are confident our Linux installation on the external drive is working for us as it should.
Given the amount of Apple laptops that have been acquired during the last pandemic, something will need to be made of them at some point. So we may start looking for solutions now that some of these materials will start making their way onto the second-hand market as first adopters switch their Intel-based Macs for the new Apple Silicon ones.