I am going to break OPs rule: anybody here has linux running on a macbook air? I really wanted to get a light laptop with a long battery and found no alternative as good as MBA
I do, running Ubuntu 14.04 on a 2013 model. It mostly works.
There was an issue with it waking up when the lid was closed that I fixed with a simple service that just runs "echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup" at startup.
Also, the webcam isn't a USB webcam: it's a PCI device made by Broadcom that doesn't have any drivers. And the 128GB SSD is a bit small and 4GB RAM isn't enough, as I use VMs sometimes.
On the plus side, the hardware is really nice and the trackpad is great. Still, I might have to get something a little more high-powered for myself and give this to my wife :)
It's not an Air experience, but in the OP's rule-breaking department I can report happily that I've been running Linux on a MBPR15"/2014, and its a very nice setup indeed .. only issue so far has been the trackpad button-taps not quite working right for my hands, but okay .. external mouse works, but .. to be honest, I'm actually also able to mount my Linux partition in VMWare, and use OSX as the host environment; in such a configuration its also a very viable Linux development rig. If I ever need to do kernel work though, I praise the holy reFind lords, if I need to .. don't quite know where I'd be without that:
I'd love for a Linux-lovin' hardware vendor to pry my Macbook away from my Apple-ate'd brain and give me a hardware platform that is 100% open source, and yet .. sexy as all hell. Alas, the sexy part is Apple's plaything, it seems. I literally do not understand why nobody else is making hardware in the same league, design-wise (I know there are technologically far superior systems; its all about the haptic experience here, ok?) ..
There was an issue with it waking up when the lid was closed that I fixed with a simple service that just runs "echo XHC1 > /proc/acpi/wakeup" at startup.
Also, the webcam isn't a USB webcam: it's a PCI device made by Broadcom that doesn't have any drivers. And the 128GB SSD is a bit small and 4GB RAM isn't enough, as I use VMs sometimes.
On the plus side, the hardware is really nice and the trackpad is great. Still, I might have to get something a little more high-powered for myself and give this to my wife :)