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I have a Dell Mini 9 I've hacked to run OS X. It's not going to replace my MacBook Pro anytime soon, but it's the perfect kick-around town/living room computer.

by rufo 17y ago

I have a Dell Mini 9 I've hacked to run OS X. It's not going to replace my MacBook Pro anytime soon, but it's the perfect kick-around town/living room computer. The install, while not yet one-click, is fairly simple to do and works with a standard Leopard DVD. I've certainly gone through worse Linux installs. And when you're done, it might as well be a Mac - Airport, webcam, Quartz Extreme/Core Image, scrolling touchpad, even the special function keys work. Hell, the thing wakes faster than my MBP, too, and does the same creepy pulsating-sleep-light as well. The only downside with the Mini 9 specifically is the bizarre keyboard - there's a really thick border around the edges , which cramps the keyboard and forces it to use odd-sized keys, pack them too close together, and arrange them with apparently little thought - keys like the apostrophe/quotation mark are down by the left arrow key. You can get used to it, but if you want to run a Terminal session you're going to swear a lot. Some of the other netbooks do have better keyboards, but none of them have the near-100% compatibility with OS X the Dell has - there's always at least one piece of hardware that's non-functional. Overall, I'm really impressed. I'd heard OS X was easy to install and runs well, but it was still fairly mind-blowing to actually see it run as well as it does. If the netbook concept intrigues, a Dell Mini 9 running OS X seems to be as good a choice as any. (Excepting that damn keyboard.)

allenbrunson 17y ago
one thing confuses me about this hackintosh phenomenon. macs always made a pretty big deal out of their pram, which is where they store which partition to boot off of and a lot of other stuff. how is that emulated on garden-variety pcs?
- joshu 17y ago
  That stuff dissapeared with PowerPC. They're EFI-based now.
  - epall 17y ago
    But PC laptops still don't have EFI I thought.
    - joshu 17y ago
      The hackintosh mods add EFI emulation, I think.
  - hexley 17y ago
    Although they're EFI based, this has nothing to do with the PRAM of older PPC macs, which has become less and less used since the advent of OS X which stores 99% of it's settings in .plist files on the HD. the PRAM used to store all sorts of information but now I think it's probably only used to store the startup disk preference and other minor things.
kylec 17y ago
Can you update it without it breaking? One of the biggest problems I had with Hackintoshes (albeit over 2 years ago) was the fact that pretty much any update that required a restart (including, but not limited to OSX point releases) would completely brick the machine and require a complete reinstall. How much has this changed?
- justinweiss 17y ago
  I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think most of the newer install methods will put the extra (non-Apple) drivers on an EFI support partition that isn't touched during system upgrades, to keep the install as pristine as possible. This also allows you to install from a real OS X disc. In my personal experience, the Mini 9 didn't have any trouble with the 10.5.7 upgrade. I had to boot into safe mode and run the driver installer again, because the new update apparently affected the video card driver, but that was it.
  - kaiserama 17y ago
    Thanks for the heads up. I'm on 10.5.6 and haven't updated to .7 yet.
kaiserama 17y ago
I have the same configuration and love it. But will second the strange keyboard layout. I had lunch with a Mac user and the first thing he said when he saw the keyboard was "that keyboard frightens me". I couldn't have said it any better. As I use the Mini9 for mostly web browsing and chatting I simply bypass using apostrophes and inform my friends that if I'm missing them I'm obviously on my Mini9 ;) From performance perspective, for most mundane UMPC tasks it works flawlessly and I can't tell much of a difference between my Macbook (black) and the Mini, but for some things like video streaming it seems to hiccup a bit. All in all though I can't complain, it's a perfect machine for going to the coffee shop or going on a trip with. If I was to do it all over again I would definitely go for the 1.3MP camera, a slightly larger HD (you need at least 16GB for OSX) and possibly the wireless broadband option.
knite 17y ago
Check out this thread: http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/dell-mini-9-hardware-upgrades/1348-replacement-keyboard-more-normal-us-intl.html http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/dell-mini-9-hardware-upgrade... There's a replacement keyboard (~$20) that alleviates most of your problems. It's still a bit cramped, but at least the key positions make sense.
- rufo 17y ago
  Ooh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's still hard to touch-type on, but not having to hit the FN key for brackets would be a lifesaver.

by rufo 17y ago

allenbrunson 17y ago

one thing confuses me about this hackintosh phenomenon. macs always made a pretty big deal out of their pram, which is where they store which partition to boot off of and a lot of other stuff. how is that emulated on garden-variety pcs?

joshu 17y ago
That stuff dissapeared with PowerPC. They're EFI-based now.
- epall 17y ago
  But PC laptops still don't have EFI I thought.
  - joshu 17y ago
    The hackintosh mods add EFI emulation, I think.
- hexley 17y ago
  Although they're EFI based, this has nothing to do with the PRAM of older PPC macs, which has become less and less used since the advent of OS X which stores 99% of it's settings in .plist files on the HD. the PRAM used to store all sorts of information but now I think it's probably only used to store the startup disk preference and other minor things.

kylec 17y ago

Can you update it without it breaking? One of the biggest problems I had with Hackintoshes (albeit over 2 years ago) was the fact that pretty much any update that required a restart (including, but not limited to OSX point releases) would completely brick the machine and require a complete reinstall. How much has this changed?

justinweiss 17y ago
I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think most of the newer install methods will put the extra (non-Apple) drivers on an EFI support partition that isn't touched during system upgrades, to keep the install as pristine as possible. This also allows you to install from a real OS X disc. In my personal experience, the Mini 9 didn't have any trouble with the 10.5.7 upgrade. I had to boot into safe mode and run the driver installer again, because the new update apparently affected the video card driver, but that was it.
- kaiserama 17y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. I'm on 10.5.6 and haven't updated to .7 yet.

kaiserama 17y ago

I have the same configuration and love it. But will second the strange keyboard layout. I had lunch with a Mac user and the first thing he said when he saw the keyboard was "that keyboard frightens me". I couldn't have said it any better. As I use the Mini9 for mostly web browsing and chatting I simply bypass using apostrophes and inform my friends that if I'm missing them I'm obviously on my Mini9 ;) From performance perspective, for most mundane UMPC tasks it works flawlessly and I can't tell much of a difference between my Macbook (black) and the Mini, but for some things like video streaming it seems to hiccup a bit. All in all though I can't complain, it's a perfect machine for going to the coffee shop or going on a trip with. If I was to do it all over again I would definitely go for the 1.3MP camera, a slightly larger HD (you need at least 16GB for OSX) and possibly the wireless broadband option.

knite 17y ago

Check out this thread: http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/dell-mini-9-hardware-upgrades/1348-replacement-keyboard-more-normal-us-intl.html http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/dell-mini-9-hardware-upgrade... There's a replacement keyboard (~$20) that alleviates most of your problems. It's still a bit cramped, but at least the key positions make sense.

rufo 17y ago
Ooh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's still hard to touch-type on, but not having to hit the FN key for brackets would be a lifesaver.