Installing Omarchy on Macbook Air 2012

Published on 2025-09-17

I've got an older Macbook Air from 2012. New Mac OS versions don't work on it, can't install them. The original battery has died and I've replaced it once or twice. I've gotten new computers since and haven't touched this thing in over two years. I mostly prefer to run linux these days when I am just using the computer for myself, not demoing or recording for non-technical users. What am I going to do with this old Macbook Air?

I've had some FOMO on Omarchy from @dhh. Arch Linux with Hyprland, don't mind if I do! I have some computers I could install it on, but they're all being used for something and I don't want to nuke them just to try a new OS. Considered buying a mini pc to install Omarchy saw this post from @dhh that they were able to install Omarchy on pre-M Macs, including T1 and T2.

Let's give it a go!

TLDR;

The steps and explanations are below, but here's a high-level what you need to do.

Download the Omarchy ISO
Put it onto a USB, make it bootable
Download the right broadcom-wl package that matches the Omarchy Arch Linux Version
Put that onto another USB
Boot to the Omarchy USB
Installation Fails, drop into the terminal
Mount the USB with broadcom-wl with mount /dev/sde /mnt
Install that with pacman -U /path/to/mounted/usb/with/broadcom-wl
Reload the mods with depmod -a
Remove the other mods with modprobe -r b43 bcma brcmsmac ssb
Reload the wl mod with modprobe wl
Verify the module with modinfo -F vermagic wl
Enable and restart iwd with systemctl enable --now iwd and then systemctl restart iwd
Check your internet now with iwctl device list, which should not be empty anymore.
Restart installation with ./.automatic_script.sh

Details

Download Omarchy

Basic. Go to Omarchy.org and download the ISO.

Make it into a bootable USB

Plug in the usb. Figure out which device it is with lsblk and make sure the sizes match. See that it wasn't there before plugging it in and it is there after. In my example below, the device was sdd

Then, make it a bootable usb with:

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/omarchy-online.iso of=/dev/sdd bs=4M status=progress

Get the right broadcom-wl package

The 2012 Macbook Air has an issue where the wireless drivers aren't supported out of the box for arch linux. I ran into this last time I tried to install arch (just arch, not Omarchy) on it and I just gave up. Without the drivers, I can't get on the internet to download the right drivers. So, you need to download it. If you get the most recent one, it might work. Or, if you're like me, it was for arch 6.16.7-arch1-1 and the Omarchy version was 6.16.5-arch1-1. So, I had to find an old one. I needed broadcom-wl-6.30.223.271-644-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst, but by the time you install, the versions might be different. Look at the commits in the broadcom-wl commits and find the one that matches your version of linux. Then, you can download the right one from the archive of broadcom-wl releases.

Put that onto a USB.

Installation

Plug both USBs into your 2012 Macbook Air. Turn on the Macbook Air, holding down the option key. When both drives show up, choose the EFI one.

It will attempt to go through the Omarchy installation, but it will fail. Don't have it retry, it won't work. Drop into the root terminal.

Now, you need to mount the USB. Figure out which device it is with lsblk again, mine was sde. Then mount it with mount /dev/sde /mnt

Install that package. pacman -U /mnt/broadcom-wl-6.30.223.271-644-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Then you need to reload the mods with depmod -a and remove the other mods with modprobe -r b43 bcma brcmsmac ssb

Reload the wl mod with modprobe wl

Verify the module with modinfo -F vermagic wl

Enable and restart iwd with systemctl enable --now iwd and then systemctl restart iwd

Check your internet now with iwctl device list, which should not be empty anymore.

Restart installation with ./.automatic_script.sh

And then it will prompt you to choose your wireless network and install from there.

Congrats, you just brought your 13 year old computer back to life.

Happy Omarchy, Happy Life!

Good luck!

- Matt Ferrante