I am just repurposing an old 2012 Mac that can't run a "safe" version of the OS with a lightweight Linux Distro. Not sure what I'm going to use it for as it's been sat on a cupboard for 5 years! But I did wonder about seeing if I could get it to run a 2nd instance of HA. For reasons....
Looking at the HA doc, looks feasible. Although my knowledge of Unix is about 25 years out of date.
Anyone done this successfully (as opposed to running it in Docker or a VM - both of which I have already on my NAS)
Failing that, it's a very fast browser with a half decent battery, so it'll be more use than it was in its box 😉
Linux Mint is has a really good GUI, but also there is a lot of resources online to assist.
I moved to it for several machines at home and it was a lot easier than I originally thought
Linux is possible, you will need to mess with kernel modules to load the right ones for your Wi-fi, webcam and fans though. Took me a few hours of googling and Ctrl-c and p. Specific boards need specific modules. My MBPro 2015 is flying with an SSD and 8gb RAM runnning Solus.
Getting bluetooth to play properly with mac wireless mouse and keyboard was a pain, I got fed up with trying to get the mouse to work and used another BT non Apple one instead.
Also got an old Mac mini going too - that was more straightforward as no webcam.
Is the 2012 one the one you pull the screen off using suction cups instead of having to remove glue to get at the HD?
Dunno, didn't take it apart as found earlier me spec'd it with a SSD 🙂 Anyway I've moved on, now running Zorin and sourcing a cheap tablet to run HA that'll be easier for controlling lights/etc.