Mac OSX 10.5.6 Leopard running on Dell Mini 9 netbook. I still need to get bluetooth working but most everything else works.
Haven't gotten real pictures yet so you'll have to deal with the ghetto iPhone camera. And a size comparison to the 20" monitor and 20" iMac. I'll get one later comparing it to the girlfriend's Macbook. Oh and Cycorder action of the Leopard movie playing. The video playback on the Mini was fine, the iPhone is limited to like 12-15 fps or something like that. YouTube - Leopard Install on Mini 9
Wow! Did you use a particular guide to get OSX running? What's the story on the Bluetooth? EDIT: How does it do playing back video, both streamed and say from a Divx file?
The screen does yes. There's an issue with sleep mode causing a kernel panic upon wake apparently so every guide I found recommended disabling it, which I did. I'm just bummed I can't get the battery meter to work correctly. No bluetooth yet, haven't mess with it today worked almost 12 hours. The guide I used was this one: From the comments on this page. However, MyDellMini really recommend doing the EFI route since it's supposedly better integration with time machine (won't be using) and updating software (got to 10.5.6 without an issue). However, every Syslinux disc I burned would send the Mini into the Dell diagnostic system. You can check up on their method here, it's a little more complex than the one I used. Um, video playback. It played 480p H264 trailers just fine the other day and it streams Youtube without an issue. I haven't tried doing a HD stream off Hulu or anything yet, but I'll post here when I have. Hah, it may be an Atom but keep in mind OS X is designed to run on fucking G5s. It's notably faster than XP was but considering Leopard is a half decade newer at least than XP that shouldn't be that surprising. As for the ram, I'm not going to do anything more intensive than surfing, iTunes and pages probably on here so I can live with the 1 gb. It surfs and IMs like a champ (which as a netbook I would hope it would) and it freaked out on some utility I downloaded the other day saying the architecture wasn't support, which I thought was kind of weird. Oh and I'm not sure if it's hardware or the Hackint0sh I've got installed but occasionally a second mouse arrow appears and the system lags for 10 seconds or so.
I could really get by with the minimum RAM, as I've got 3GB of DDR-2 laptop memory sitting in my desk at home. I'm really, really tempted to pull the trigger. In fact I probably would have, but when I first checked the 16GB models weren't available. And now that they are available the 20% coupon has expired!!! :crybaby:
whoa, thats impressive didnt know you could put osx on it you plan on keeping it on there or going back to xp?
Well, damn it! I can't find any current coupon codes for the Mini 9s. They've got the 8GB model which would be $219 after the 20% off, which would suit my needs perfectly.
I'm gonna keep it as I despise XP. That sucks. All I can say is to keep monitoring slickdeals.net as that's where I found the coupon and they're usually pretty quick on getting new stuff posted. Though even without the coupon they're a pretty good deal. Oh and as far as the 8gb version, if you plan on doing OS X there's some extra steps for upgrading since the os takes up a good chunk of the system's memory. (Like right now 7.6 gbs used of 14.03) But Dell gives you 1 or 2 gigs of online storage to use and there's an SD slot that I've got a 4gb card in right now.
See, for my uses I'm tempted just to pick up an Asus with a 4GB drive and Linux. Internet access on-the-go is my goal, and the 7 inch screen is actually a plus as I could literally slip the unit into my coat pocket.
So now that you've been running it for a month or so, what's the verdict on OSX on this thing? You have iLife loaded I suppose, what's the full footprint?
iLife comes with the OS but I haven't dumped any music for iTunes on it yet. (Still debating that as I have an iPhone that's always on me.) The largest thing I've installed is iWork '09 which is about 600 megs. So total I've got 14.03 on the SSD with 5.5 free (it's the 16 gb version). It runs everything fine, obviously is a little slower b/c of the Nano but not unusable. Things load quickly on the SSD but transferring is slow which is not a deal breaker because I rarely transfer files and won't be doing a lot on this machine. The OS X battery life indicator doesn't work but I usually get 3-4 hours of surfing and IMing before the 20% battery LED comes on. And he trackpad does some weird stuff sometimes, but I think that's from me merging two different install types. I've debated attempting to reinstall with the new version 8 image from the mydellmini forums but at the same time I've got a working OS that I don't necessarily want to get rid of.
Given that I only got the 8GB SSD drive I think I'll be sticking with Ubuntu for the short term. But I've been checking around, larger drives are out there and dropping in price. Right now the 32GB drive is about $99, and the 64GB is $199. That'll drop pretty fast. I figure once the 32GB is below $50 I'll pull the trigger on one. I doubt I would need much more than that frankly, especially given how slow those drives are supposed to be. Imagine transferring 25GB of MP3s to it? Zzzzzz.....
Okay, I could really use some help here. I've been trying to figure this out for a week. In step #5, what EXACTLY does: "download the type 11 boot iso and take it apart till you find the install.dmg open this up and run “miniscript”" mean??? I downloaded this ISO and examined it with a couple different ISO programs. There is NO "install.dmg" file in there! What do these instructions mean? How do you take apart this ISO and get install.dmg? Where or what is "miniscript"? I can't find this question asked or answered anywhere, so I guess I must be missing something obvious. Can someone here help me with this step? Thanks for any replies...
The link is broken apparently. Go here: MyDellMini • HowTo: Install OS X on the Mini9 (Boot132) Official Thread But really, read up on the mydellmini forums and see if you can get the retail install to work as my half-hacked together version sort of works but there's issue with the battery meter and with the trackpad. In fact, I'm going to reinstall using the iDeneb release this weekend.
