Swift

Macbook Air 11" purchased for travel, but Julie bonded with it and I ended up bonding with Plover so Swift was Julie's computer. Then a lot of time went by, and Apple stopped supporting the operating system so we got a fancy Pixelbook for Julie but neither of us think much of it.

Swift is back to where we bought it in 2011; I am thinking it will work as a travel companion.

Potential upgrades, there is an OWC SSD for this computer. The SSD uses a custom Apple connector. (Bah!) So don't waste time shopping for a generic M.2 drive.

History

• 2024-10 Linux Mint
• 2022 Reborn with Elementary OS Linux!!
• 2021 Retired to the closet. Makes me sad. It works perfectly.
• 2020 Replaced battery
• 2013-01-13 set up TimeMachine to Bellman via netatalk
• 2013-01 replaced dead power supply
• 2011-10-27 purchased at Corvallis Mac Store

Software

2024-10-16 Linux Mint 22 (Wilma) installed. ElementaryOS was okay but Linux Mint is better and runs everywhere.

Also added some other random things including emacs-nox, kismet, horst, git, firefox, firmware-b4-installer.

WiFi driver

Installing drivers for WiFi on Macs always a problem. I used the "Driver Manager". Reboot then run "inxi -F" to see what it finds. Should look like this,

Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n driver: wl
  IF: wlp2s0 state: dormant mac: 60:c5:47:00:90:5a

How do I add something to the Dock?

Download VSCode then install it from a .DEB package

sudo dpkg -i ****.deb

I can launch it by typing "code". But how to add to dock? Well, it showed up in Applications -- did not realize there are >1 page in there. You can also type in Applications search. Once you find it just right click and add it to the dock.

Hardware

Detailed description: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/specs/macbook-air-core-i5-1.6-11-mid-2011-specs.html

I want to replace the 128GB SSD with something faster. I will probably end up going to OWC because I trust them. I can go to a 500GB for $79. I already have tools around somewhere because I did the battery replacement. I won't be able to use the old SSD though since it's a proprietary Apple part. Tsk.

Comments on the hardware

USB is 2.0 only so it's slow by modern standards.

External Wifi -- Supports the Alfa WiFi adapters out of the box. This is good for extending range and for wardriving projects. Built in WiFi is weak.

Hardware report

 Model Name:	MacBook Air
 Model Identifier:	MacBookAir4,1
 Processor Name:	Intel Core i5
 Processor Speed:	1.6 GHz
 Number of Processors:	1
 Total Number of Cores:	2
 L2 Cache (per Core):	256 KB
 L3 Cache:	3 MB
 Memory:	4 GB
 Boot ROM Version:	MBA41.0077.B0F
 SMC Version (system):	1.74f1
 Serial Number (system):	C02G94Z8DJYD
 Hardware UUID:	3AF11929-1AD3-5036-9C1D-0469B155CE92
 Volumes:
   disk0s1:
     Capacity:	209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
     BSD Name:	disk0s1
     Content:	EFI
Macintosh HD:
 Capacity:	120.47 GB (120,473,067,520 bytes)
 Available:	95.64 GB (95,635,693,568 bytes)
 Writable:	Yes
 File System:	Journaled HFS+
 BSD Name:	disk0s2
 Mount Point:	/
 Content:	Apple_HFS
Recovery HD:
 Capacity:	650 MB (650,002,432 bytes)
 BSD Name:	disk0s3
 Content:	Apple_Boot

Results of power-calibrate

12-10-22 I don't know what it means but it took so long I thought I should memorialize the results

For 4 CPUs (of a 4 CPU system):
  Power (Watts) = (% CPU load * 1.120923e-01) + 9.510396
  1% CPU load is about 112.09 mW (about 14.73 mA @ 7.61 V)
  Coefficient of determination R^2 = 0.808659 (good)

  Energy (Watt-seconds) = (bogo op * 1.124080e-08) + 9.590517
  1 bogo op is about 11.24 nW (about 1.48 nA @ 7.61 V)
  Coefficient of determination R^2 = 0.944587 (strong)

  Energy (Watt-seconds) = (CPU cycle * 1.479422e-09) + 10.062673
  1 CPU cycle is about 1.48 nW (about 194.40 pA @ 7.61 V)
  Coefficient of determination R^2 = 0.856790 (good)

  Energy (Watt-seconds) = (CPU instruction * 8.401967e-10) + 9.593806
  1 CPU instruction is about 0.84 nW (about 110.40 pA @ 7.61 V)
  Coefficient of determination R^2 = 0.944759 (strong)

Way back when it was a MacOSX machine

Backups via Time Machine

Install Netatalk 3 on Debian server. It's only a little painful.

Mount afp://bellman/TimeMachine using Cmd-K and Guest access from Finder.

Run these commands on the Mac in a terminal

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/TimeMachine

Create the sparse bundle file and copy it to the TimeMachine volume. See directions elsewhere. You name it with your Mac computer's hostname and MAC number. Open Time Machine from System Preferences and set it up.

For some reason Swift could not find the Time Machine volume, maybe the above commands failed? On Stellar I did not need them, everything was configurable from Time Machine itself.