Ubuntu 26.04 on a 2013 MacBook Air

I recently came into possession of a 2013 MacBook Air, model A1466. Nothing out of the ordinary with the Ubuntu Desktop installation. When I restarted, however, I was confronted with the flashing-folder-with-a-question-mark problem. After a little research I discovered that there is a quirk with this model's UEFI. The solution was to manually partition the drive during installation.

 

 

• Erase the existing drive by clicking the 'New partition table' button.
• Select the relevant SSD as the 'Device for boot loader installation.' You'll see a partition mounted at /boot/efi. That was what was missing for my setup.
• Create a partition with the remaining free space.
• Install. 

Problem solved. This ancient MacBook works great!

One more thing...

If you've installed Linux on older hardware in the past then you're familiar with the lack of appropriate Wi-Fi drivers. In my case I needed Broadcom drivers. The command below and a reboot and I was wirelessly connected.

sudo apt install broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-dkms