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Various tips for Dell Users


murraykj709
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Hello,

 

Im new to this site, but not new to the scene in general.

 

I have expiermented with running OSX on various hardware situations,

with to what I must say very good success.

 

My background is about 20 years computers and related electronics, and I am from Newfoundland Canada.

 

The First system that I had tried to to convert to OSX was a ZT systems Celeron 1.5Ghz That I picked up really cheap at the local Staples (Business Supply store) This system is pretty much a typical manufacture clone, with a MSI Motherboard ect.. it ended up being a $197 Mac/Windows Machine.. Anyways that was about 2 years ago..

 

More recently I have kinda looked a little more into the MAC as a result of being asked a couple of questions. To be honest I never really seen much purpose of a mac, as most of what I use is either Solaris/Unix Ubuntu Linux or Windows..

 

However after some considerations and tweeks ect, I can say that most people would be happy with a Mac as a day to day machine.

 

I have tried OSX on various systems and types of drives, some have worked better than others, however in pretty much all circumstances resulted in a typical Hackintosh install, and appeared to be very stable in nature.

 

I have created various forms of medium such as SD and MicroSD, to create Expiermental Diskless systems that do not require a typical Hard Drive Installed.

 

I have not used any of the typical install instructions, as some of them often resulted in bad results.

 

More recently, I have used OSX to Recycle Items such as Dell Inspiron Laptops, as well as make them completely diskless. (no Spinning HDD Platter..)

 

Software such as VirtualBox has also been utilized under OSX on typical x86 hardware, with good results... usual XP, Linux, Windows7... All pretty much fine..

 

I am not really sure of what the overall situation is of using Items such as MicroSD cards to hold a complete operating system as well as virtualized applications. I can tell you that it does work, however resources that I have looked at give various mixed results in relation to how hard you can actually run a Typical Storage Chip. One Site tells me I might get 51 years out of one... another says maby 8 years... Sandisk says the chips should hold data for 100 years..

 

All I can say in my results I have seen no problems as of yet... and to be honest, due to the nature of my work, I often use SD and MicroSD for general data.. I do a lot of travel and work in remote regions of canada which are often very harsh and demanding. I have never damaged a drive myself.. but others have, and as such I just use SD cards and mirror my specific data to a remote backup.. works for me..

 

I like the idea of having a Flexable Portable medium... as well as being waterproof and resistant to other harsh situations.

 

Obviously one can simply say, just install OSX on the local HDD... which is true, however, what I am expiermenting with is the concept of a universal plug in chip.

 

I have it down to the size of a dime, and it works.

 

Obviously some speeds are somewhat different depending on how they are utilized, however what I am finding is that regardless on older hardware, the USB port is providing better Throughput than typical IDE drives.. as another point, it is now very much cost effective also to buy large portable HDD's for about $30-$70 tried that and those work fine as well..

 

Voodoo with the seatbelt fix, seems to be acceptable on most things that I have tried, however VirtualBox XML's for specific machines running in the VM, need to have the VX set to False, by hand... I think this is just a small bug in virtual box... but it will easily show a novice quite quickly how to debug a small script.

 

I find that OSX as a Unix system tends to make better use of resources, its less of a memory hog.

 

Anyways, these are my findings, and its pretty much open to conversation.

 

All I can say is that I am expiermenting with the concept of having all of this running off a chip and it is working, with out a hard drive.

 

If you have done a typical install before, you obviously know what Kernel and Ktext are needed...

 

The only Differenence that I did was to use the USB port and a Card Reader plus a chip big enough to hold what needed to run..

 

Its Self Contained and Bootable. The chip can be Boiled in a Kettle, Frozen in a IceCube Tray in the freezer. Run over by a car... it still Works, and has all data intact... I do not think that you can Burn one with a lighter, the Plastic will melt, and thus be destroyed... however it does appear to be very weather proof and somwhat resistant to physical abuse.

 

Another thing as well...

 

Instead of messing around with multiple partitions ect.. as is often the situation as a computer has a HDD and then basically multiple OS, which is common..

 

just use a external HDD and use the Bios Boot Option as found on many systems to select the drive you want to boot.

 

on a Dell its as easy as pressing F12 select your USB drive after you have installed the OS to it..

 

So you can basically either consider using a Large Flash device... or you can find a simple USB HDD..

 

you can easily Piggyback either to a notebook as they are small, and light with velcro..

 

you can drop a laptop down the stairs, pop the chip, find another machine, and all is pretty much normal.

(I do not recomend anyone to throw a Hard Drive down the stairs.. as example.. might not be a good idea)

 

but yes, a Chip will take a lot of abuse, and you will not loose the data incase of a small disaster..

 

 

Computers Tested:

ZT Systems Celeron 1.5ghz

Dell Inspiron 1525 Core2 2Ghz

Dell Inspiron 2200 Celeron 1.5Ghz

 

All will work Diskless.

 

The nifty thing on the Inspiron 1525 was that it also had a internal card reader, however it did not have a boot option to Specific Boot from Internal SD... so what I had ended up doing was making something a little different. Resulting in a Diskless Celeron.

 

Anyways this has gone on for some time, and no problems really to say at this time... it works..

Sound, Video, Wifi, Internal Lan, DVD Playback is flawless.

 

Anyways Please see the attached Photos,

 

I Call it a MacJack / I think someone else called it a Apple Jack... but Apple Jack is refered to some Apple specific maintence issues.

 

(I have concepts Sent to Apple Dev, and is pending specific situations for Industrial and Marine Applications.)

post-656810-1282223548_thumb.jpg

post-656810-1282223583_thumb.jpg

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