I’ve got this Mac with Linux on it, and yes, you 100% want to disable Nvidia for sure.

Your username is spinning me out. We always ask our cat if he’d like to “Eat da feesh” when we feed him any fish tins or treats, and we spell it just like that when we message each other to say he’s been fed too haha.

…Milo, is that you? 🐈‍⬛

For the reasons I switched to Debian see my other reply.

I use the computer for:

• Learning and understanding Linux, in the broader sense. It’s a “spare” computer and over the past 3 years I’ve installed Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Gnome, Pop! OS, Spiral Linux, G4OS, Linux Mint, LMDE, Spiral Linux, Debian, EndeavourOS, Fedora, Garuda… and I’ve failed to install (wouldn’t boot to live USB, or wouldn’t boot after installation) many more, including Void, PikaOS, MX Linux, OpenSUSE, and probably a few others…
• Playing old games. I’ve got a steam deck, but for things like Return To Castle Wolfenstein and the Settlers II you just need a mouse and keyboard. Lutris has been awesome.

If you have a 15” Retina MBP, it’s been a huge pain in the ass, and multiple distros just stopped working after updates, often not long after installation. But also it’s been a good learning experience for the very same same reason. To work well in 2026 it needs the Nvidia graphics disabling - but the NVRAM defaults that Mac to Nvidia at startup for Linux, so even that bit isn’t straightforward! If you simply blacklist Nvidia it won’t boot.

I also bought a USB WiFi adapter as the Broadcom card doesn’t work initially on most distros, and can’t support WPA3 even when it does work.

I was using Endeavour, btw. Needed almost zero tinkering and was good to go straight away.

But I run Linux on an ancient 2012 MacBook Pro, so eventually swapped over to Debian, btw.