Deepin is a beautiful version of Linux. As an American, I'm enjoying deepin very much. I did want to leave a few problems I solved, as well as one I didn't, for deepin coders in case they'd like to make sure older MacBooks run deepin well.

Two main issues. First one is the touch pad. Deepin and other Linux versions use a touchpad driver that stops and starts with MacBooks, at least those from the 2009 - 2012 era. There is a fix for this, and that is to install the synaptics input driver. I've done it on my MacBooks and it works better than the default. Here's the command line in a deepin terminal window:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

That installs the driver. Log out, log back in, and it should be working for you.

Second issue has to do with installing Chrome browser. Use the standard approach, either downloading it with the deepin browser and installing it with deepin package manager or from the command line in terminal.

sudo apt install google-chrome-stable

WAIT (edited to insert the face that the above, though it works to install chrome, is not a good way to do it. Best way, that leaves things unbroken, is to download chrome from deepin browser, then use package manager to install that download!)

Okay, make sure to initially enable system title bar in order to resize Chrome. Once you've done that and resized it, you can turn off system title bar and it will still let you resize Chrome. Oddly, it doesn't let you resize it before then.

Finally, good luck with the fussy video in these machines. My 2009, and this is strange, did install deepin 20.8 fine but there was no way to change brightness of the screen (which is on maximum brightness). I tried all sorts of remedies, but am not clever enough to have broken through.

On the 2012, deepin 20.8 refused to install until I chose safe screen install from the grub menu. However, once I did do that, it installed fine and the brightness keyboard buttons did work, unlike the 2009.

That's my report. I am enjoying deepin. I tried the v23 alpha2 and it worked fine screen wise on the 2009... but of course had some issues which I am sure are about it being an alpha version (screen tearing and such).

Thank you developers!