Lessons Learned

MacBook Wind.

MacBook Mini.

That makes two netbooks that I’ve successfully hackintoshed. After countless rounds of installation, reinstallation, tweaking, applying kexts, updating and then some more tweaking, have I truly understood the game?

Perhaps I’d just try to summarize what wisdom I’ve gained from this story and journey into these few guiding rules:

Initial OS X installation:

1) Get a decent broadband connection – this is how you get your hands on installer .iso’s and hackintosh forums and kexts; pretty much the essence of it all.

2) Always keep the ff. peripherals handy: external mouse, keyboard, hard drive – there’s no guarantee that your netbook’s keyboard and trackpad will be supported/recognized by OS X out of the box. As for the hard drive, I prefer creating a bootable installer from an external hard drive as installation is much faster than from DVD. USB flash drives work great too; just be sure to get one with 16 gigs or at the very least, 8 gigs or Mac OS X Leopard just won’t fit in.

3) DVD writer – if this is your first hackintosh, it would be easier to start off by burning the .iso into DVD and boot from that to install OS X.

Updating to 10.5.x (OS X already up and running on the netbook):

1) OSX86 Universal Installer – already contains the OSx86_Essentials kexts, DSDT Patcher, and Chameleon bootloader installer. It’s already got kext install feature but you can get Kext Helper b7 as a separate app.

2) Back up of your kexts, files etc – for reinstallation after the update.

3) External mouse, keyboard – as the update might potentially break your input devices.

What’s Happened to the MacBook Wind?

These past few weeks, I find myself more and more enamored with the HP Mini 1000 – or my MacBook Mini, spending less and less time with the MacBook Wind (see, I even dropped the possessive adjective “my” there) to devote it instead to my MacBook Mini. Heck I even endure sacrificing my own cells’ well-being by not sleeping during the cell regeneration hours – 10pm – 1am – just to tinker with my (yes, “my”) MacBook Mini.

If there’s anything to prove how hooked I am and committed to my MacBook Mini, the screenshot below suffices:

(from my MacBook Mini; the MacBook Wind is still on 10.5.6 and I don’t know when I’ll bother to update it)

Seduction would aptly describe what happened between the HP Mini 1000 and me. I was just browsing the net, reading stuff about netbooks and then, with one click to enlarge a thumbnail on a website, the next thing I knew, I was carrying a black box with a plastic handle back home containing an HP Mini 1001TU.

At first, I wasn’t ready to completely break it up with the MacBook Wind; the HP Mini was still running Windows XP at that time and OS X Leopard, the one thing my heart truly desires, was something that only the MacBook Wind could give me. But it wasn’t long before I had decent broadband connection at home and completed downloading iDeneb and everything else fell into place.

What I love about my MacBook Mini:
Everything works great:
1) WiFi – is recognized as Airport and as for compatibility, see pic below:

(78.4 KB/sec download rate; not bad)

I was only leeching off of a neighbor’s WiFi network (which wasn’t password protected) and only had 1 bar – if you call it a “bar” – for signal strength.
2) Bluetooth – ok, it wasn’t the Wind’s fault that I got it even without internal BT but it’s a relief that BT’s built in on my MacBook Mini.
3) BT/WiFi switch – I toggle the switch so the blue led turns red and BT & WiFi turn off, I toggle again; the red led turns blue and BT & WiFi turn on again. Cool! I don’t have to reboot the machine just to turn BT/WiFi on again.
4) Sleep/Resume – I close the lid and all turns off – fan stops, BT/WiFi led light goes off, hard drive stops spinning (as indicated by the white led light), leaving only the power led pulsating. And when I open again the lid, everything springs to back to life as well as BT/WiFi. Again, no more reboot blah blah.
5) Ethernet – Works great with the AppleYukon2 kext.
6) Sound – Yes, I’ve sound working on my MacBook Mini without the need of an external USB sound card. Not perfect though – volume adjustment is an enigma at best – but I can watch my fave series and DVD’s now and can even use earphones without having to use Applescripts, thanks to VoodooHDA.

Who wouldn’t swoon over these looks anyway?

I know I would and in my opinion, the HP Mini 1000 can definitely hold its own beside the MacBook Air — the HP Mini with OS X, that is.