From prior research, I knew that to get the wireless adapter working on this MacBook, I would need to issue three separate commands in the Bash terminal.
I had a hard-wired Ethernet connection to the internet through my Thunderbolt adapter, so I was online. This is in contrast to Intel, Atheros, and many other chip manufacturers-but it's the chipset used by Apple, so it's a common problem on MacBooks. This is because Broadcom, the company that makes WiFi cards for Apple devices, doesn't release open source drivers. Linux Mint started up nicely in live-boot mode, but the operating system didn't recognize a wireless connection. I powered on the system and pressed the Option key on the MacBook to instruct it to start it from a USB drive. Next, I connected the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter to the MacBook and inserted the USB boot drive. Free online course: RHEL Technical Overview.
