# breathing life back into an old macbook pro - omarchy edition

- Author: @gurupanguji
- Date: 2025-10-31
- URL: https://gurupanguji.com/blog/2025/10/31/breathing-life-back-into-an-old-macbook-pro-omarchy-edition/
- Categories: review
- Tags: apple, distros, linux, macbook, omarchy

---


<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p><a href="https://omarchy.org">https://omarchy.org</a></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>I love giving life to old computers. Over the weekend, I got my son a used M1 Macbook Air and so a 2014 intel based 13" Macbook Pro that was flashed with Chrome OS Flex became available to tinker. I immediately got started setting up omarchy on it. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Honestly, it's been a lot of fun setting it up. There are many things I don't like about DHH. However, we do share some similar sentiments and I guess tastes around how to setup a linux distro. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>I've been tinkering with linux distros since 2002 when I got my very first computer. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>This is _by far_ the best installation experience I've ever had. It also strikes a strong balance between pre configuration and setting up and starting you with something useful. The biggest problems with setting up linux distros in a mac before this has been that Mac based firmware was typically not considered kosher as part of the open-source drivers. So you always had to start with some fiddly system, figure out a way to connect to ethernet and then deal with wifi drivers. Those were the worst. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>They were fantastic to learn about the linux system and I won't regret spending hours trying to debug pulse audio and broadcom wifi drivers. However, those are not necessary to take a system from useless to working. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:image {"id":12677,"sizeSlug":"full","linkDestination":"media"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="/assets/images/blog/image-5.png"><img src="/assets/images/blog/image-5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12677"/></a></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Chrome OS Flex was also a great way to bring this macbook pro back to life as apple EOL'd this a long time ago. However, omarchy seems to have even gotten around some of the weirdness of chrome OS Flex and its high cpu usage when typing too. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Overall, if your goal is to breathe life into some old intel hardware, this is the way to go now. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>Highly recommend.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->