Subnostr

I've installed Debian 12 Mate on an old Macbook Pro from 2012 for a friend. Took a while to figure out how to disable the secondary GPU which seems to be fried and force the computer to use the primary onboard graphics chip.

Had to also download broadcom driver for wifi to work.

now if I "apt-update & apt-upgrade" it breaks the wifi and the system freezes a few minutes after booting into the DE.

Is there a way to do the updates without this happening? I know I can freeze packages through synaptic, however will freezing the wifi driver suffice? what about the kernel? both?

I dont want to give them back a Macbook Pro that cant do system updates on Linux.

#ASKNOSTR

#MAC

#LINUX

#DEBIAN\

#BROADCOM

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Discussion

Dr. Hax 1y ago

Hard to say without knowing the root cause. I'd say freeze the wifi module first. That might automatically lock you to an older kernel if the new kernels changed the interface, but it'll give you the best chance at keeping as mich code updated as possible.

If the issue is not in the driver, then it's likely that freezing both will address the wifi issue.

I can't guarantee this will fix the freeze when the desktop environment loads, but if not, we can try to troubleshoot that separately