OpenSUSE Leap for a non-computer-savvy family member?

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My boyfriend recently upgraded his MacBook Pro 2012 to a MacBook Air M4. I suggested that the old Intel-based MacBook Pro could get a second life with Linux and he was interested. (He’s not particularly into computers, but he likes the idea of FOSS)

The last time he visited I helped him transfer everything to the new one. Once he’s gotten settled, I’d like to try installing some flavor of Linux on the old MacBook.

Leap was my first thought as well because of my familiarity with Tumbleweed, probably with GNOME instead of Plasma, for the more MacOS-like experience. It wouldn’t get used for more than Internet browsing, watching videos and checking email.

When I finally get a chance to do it, I’ll share the experience!

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I would call this way more MacOS-ish than whatever you can do with GNOME:

afbeelding
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And, yes, this is Plasma with minimal adaptations. Default panel → top, Global Menu widget added to it, Fuzzy clock, Shutdown/Restart widget. Bottom panel with only Kicker + Quick Launch.

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I have a MacBook Pro 2012/2013 running Tumbleweed and Hyprland…

2026-08-24-101107_hyprshot
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I would not give Hyprland to a non-computer-savvy family member. Like I would not even mention vim to them, unless for forcing support questions.

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It’s an indicator to the OP since they are looking at GNOME and that openSUSE works fine… If it’s like mine with Nvidia/Intel, then use the nouveau driver.

If they want to use wifi, I would suggest a wifi dongle else you will need to deal with kernel updates and broadcom (I build my own rpm locally)…

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Me - I used Plasma , as explained in this [dated] article. And unfortunately, Latte Dock is gone, which acted like a Mac dock:

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Is this a possible alternative, although still a release candidate?
Aeon nee MicroOS
Comes in either Gnome or KDE flavours & offers the immutable or Atomic style updates like Chromebooks - which makes it simple for maintenance in theory I believe. I know this to be the case from Chrome books, but haven’t tried this one.

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That looks pretty good! Maybe I’ll give something like that a try as I’m more comfortable in Plasma than I am in GNOME.

If he had given the MacBook to me, that’s probably what I’d do with it just to give Hyprland a try, but it’s great to see that you’re running openSUSE on similar hardware!

I have read about the issue with Broadcom WiFi drivers. I might be able to manage that for him. Do you remember any other issues during install and setup that I should look out for, or was it otherwise pretty straightforward?

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I actually dual boot with MacOS Monteray via OpenCore Legacy patcher, so I did create a secondary /boot/efi partition and just use the option key if wanting to boot to MacOS…

I also have a Thunderbolt Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, which was used for the install.

I used the new Agama installer and a profile to add users, setup ssh and the Hyprland packages, I did use the Agama disk tool as wasn’t confident my layout was correct, but comparing it’s output from what I had created would have worked.

I like the abilities of Agama as can also recover an appropriate install json file and save before the actual install.

I build any packages eg broadcom-wl on my development system and they just get scp’d over to a local directory which is also a repository for updating.

Likewise I maintain a few Hyprland packages in openSUSE, so it’s also a test system…

I did try the nvidia driver but it created a ghost display card so just left it at nouveau and then use a Hyprland environment variable to set the Nvidia gpu as the primary card. I did scale the display so it runs at 1080p, as well as various customization’s for the likes of the ashell color theme.

I mainly use it for surfing the internet and libreoffice, so no heavy usage.

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Coincidentally, I also use KDE Plasma set up in a way like a Mac interface.

Screenshot_20260823_132548
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The top panel has a global menu as well.

I tried GNOME in the past (and made a rice I think I posted on here) but I actually personally prefer KDE Plasma to generate a Mac-like interface. GNOME, to me, is more of a touch-friendly interface.

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@malcolmlewis This is something I should try. I have a 2017-2018 MacBook that I believe is Intel-based. MacOS no longer boots up on it.

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@jaymo_chicago2 OpenCore or openSUSE?

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@malcolmlewis Ideally openSUSE. I think it’s a good candidate to install something like openSUSE MicroOS and learn some new things like containers.

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Should work fine.

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Aeon doesn’t come with Plasma. Never has, never will.

Kalpa is a very similar project to Aeon, that provides the Plasma desktop.

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I can’t comment from a current desktop perspective - but if you provide timely maintenance, my view is this is very doable.

Over about 1.5 decades ago, back when my mother was age-85 or so (living in Canada) and I was 57 at the time living in Germany, I just did that. She had been running MS-Windows constantly getting virus, and her PC support for Windows was limited.

So during a visit to Canada I backed up her data, wiped MS-Windows off of her hard drive, installed openSUSE Linux and in a Virtual Box session, under openSUSE, I re-installed MS-Windows in Virtual Box. For openSUSE, for her, I selected the KDE desktop, as at that time, I thought it closer to look/feel as to how her MS-Windows operated.

I setup her PC to boot to openSUSE. On her desktop was an icon that when selected booted Virtual Box to automatically run her MS-Windows in a virtual session. I made a backup (routinely) of her MS-Windows virtual box virtual drive (as a separate file) on her PC harddrive, so if she ever had a virus, it was a simple matter to point Virtual box to the backup virtual drive. I had to do that a couple of times as it turned out.

From Germany, I would vnc into her PC (piped over SSH) and I could both maintain her openSUSE and her virtual box MS-Windows. Eventually, she stopped using MS-Windows and she only used openSUSE. The Virtual session of MS-Windows became no longer needed.

In those days, Skype allowed video chats, and we would have 10 to 15 minute video chats practically every day, myself in Germany, and her in Canada. She would take that opportunity to tell me of any PC issues, and later if needed she would leave her PC powered, and if needed, pass me her IP address (I had an icon setup on her desktop, that if clicked,would give to her, her PC’s IP address), so once with her IP address, I could access her PC and do any needed maintenance. After maintenance done remotely, I would (remotely) shut down her PC.

In the end, this evolved into being even more robust, with even more measures added so I could easily support her PC - with my being half the world away.

So such is doable - it all depends on the amount of effort one wishes to put into this, and the amount of trust that exists.

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OK, but with a name change from Micro OS, Kalpa does apparently unless the information on the website is inaccurate. So you are correct that Aeon won’t provide Plasma but apparently Kalpa does, which is as far as I understand it the same thing.

Kalpa Source: from the link below.

https://microos.opensuse.org/blog/2023-05-27-microOS-Desktop-is-changing-names/

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I’m pretty sure @sfalken knows a thing or two about Kalpa… and that blog post :eyes:

The point he was making is that Aeon and Kalpa are separate projects. Aeon for GNOME, Kalpa for KDE Plasma.

You can’t say that “Aeon provides Plasma because Kalpa does” or “Aeon has a variant which provides Plasma” because Kalpa isn’t Aeon.

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Correct. Aeon and Kalpa share some of the same concepts, design principles, and codebase, but they are independent of each other.

As the Kalpa Lead Developer, I don’t directly contribute any code or work for Aeon, and Vice-Versa for the Aeon developers.

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@oldcpu That is great to know. We both live in the same region so if you can make it work with your mother across the pond, then I can make it work with my family member who wants Linux.