Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ?

[aimfire]

I've heard the same thing, re: the MSI Wind - need to replace wifi card and audio jacks don't work.

Real dealbreaker for me is, the reported 2 hour battery life. However, if you really want to persue a Wind, good news is Best Buy is to begin selling them SOON... this week or next... according to Engadget.

 

I ordered my Mini from Dell on Oct.5... scheduled to ship in Oct. 24... ugh :-(

 

CL is also dead in my area as well.

[PeteRock]

I do NOT recommend this! The journaling on Mac OS X HFS+ does not work like it does on other OSs/filesystems; it isn't a wasteful mess like say, Reiser is. It is very lightweight and tuned to specific aspects of HFS Btrees and file recovery. You do NOT want your machine to KP w/o the journal; it takes *forever* to fix the old way and you *will* lose files.

I found this package; it is very useful to us. I checked it out; it is safe. I believe it comes from a "build your own distro" kit.

 

It strips the PPC code from your system in places most UI apps don't; the *nix directories are full of ppc code we won't be using

 

On my system, with 10.5.5 installed and some other {censored}, I have ~ 7GB of drive space free on my 16GB SSD.

 

Highly recommend this.

 

StripPPC.pkg.zip

 

I did some benchmarks a while ago with and without journaling turned on (always on for my dell) and it's twice as fast writing small 4k blocks with it turned off but i would not sacrifice stability for a negligible increase in speed.

 

Will give that strpppc.pkg a go as if i can slim down osx further then i got room to dual boot with xp (just trashed my install trying a dualboot haha)

 

This is a great forum and an even better thread. Great work.

 

I am wondering if someone could give me a high level outline of what I would need to do to properly install and boot into Windows XP off a USB drive (since I read you can't install both OS's on the SSD very easily) assuming I have OS X installed on the SSD.

 

Conversely, would any of the methods here work in reverse--i.e. install OS X to a USB stick and boot into that w/ XP on the SSD?

 

Thank you.

 

I have tried to boot xp off a usb drive and it's next to impossible, tried variations of different flavors of xp etc and none of them work, even tried to remove the ssd and flip the bit on a usb drive to fool windows to thinking its not removable and this did not work either.

 

Far better off dualbooting and even that is a pain in the a$$!

 

The performance of osx booting off of usb would be too slow in my opinion but I am welcome for feedback if you get either working!

[francola]

One more note coolbook works out of the box on either method...

 

Could you share your optimal settings that you have found for CoolBook with the mini?

 

I tried CoolBook for the first time yesterday on the mini, and without changing any settings it cooled sown like 20 deegrees! That is good enough for me, but I was just curious if I should try tweaking it.

 

Thanks!

[ѕӎѳѳ₮ңӌ]

there are instructions on how to do this here: clicky

[UnaClocker]

Great, another idiot blog ignoring the month of research we've done here, and doing this the hard/old fashioned way..

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/09/the-little-leopard-laptop/

[davewolfs]

Sigh...still no sleep. For me that is a deal breaker.

[atomoverride]

Any update on sleep guys? or more importantly the media reader?

[mini9]

I am stuck with hours and hours of searching still couldnt get the thing working. I m installing OSX (iAtkos v4) using 4GB usb stick.

 

Here are the steps i followed.

1. Prepare iAtkos USB using disk utility.......make it bootable using chameleon 1.0.11.

2. Boot from usb. Format partition using disk utility (macos extended journaled)

3. Install iAtkos (selecting only iAtkos and Darwin Boot Loader)

4. After Reboot i m getting

 

boot0: MBR

boot0: done

 

and thats it. nothing happens.

 

i reinstalled several times still the same thing.

 

i cannot get the mini to boot after successfull install

 

Please Help

[darkten]

Sigh...still no sleep. For me that is a deal breaker.

 

That is too bad dave because as far as i know, this machine offers about the best ootb experience of all of these things.

 

I have found, in day-to-day, that sleep is really not an issue, simply because it can be closed to be moved.

 

When closed, the machine shuts off the display and drops to less than 800Mhz and as a habit, i don't keep machines closed and sleeping for hours and hours anyway.

 

 

It is a great little machine; so much so that I bought another one for someone else.

 

 

 

 

Great, another idiot blog ignoring the month of research we've done here, and doing this the hard/old fashioned way..

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/09/the-little-leopard-laptop/

 

 

I actually know those guys...I set 'em straight for ya Type11

[UnaClocker]

I am stuck with hours and hours of searching still couldnt get the thing working. I m installing OSX (iAtkos v4) using 4GB usb stick.

 

Here are the steps i followed.

1. Prepare iAtkos USB using disk utility.......make it bootable using chameleon 1.0.11.

2. Boot from usb. Format partition using disk utility (macos extended journaled)

3. Install iAtkos (selecting only iAtkos and Darwin Boot Loader)

4. After Reboot i m getting

 

boot0: MBR

boot0: done

 

and thats it. nothing happens.

 

i reinstalled several times still the same thing.

 

i cannot get the mini to boot after successfull install

 

Please Help

The iAtkos method is kind of dated.. Anyways.. Sounds like you aren't formatting the drive GUID.. You need to do that.

[Type11]

there are instructions on how to do this here: clicky

 

This was of interest to me and I made the iso with the mods they mention but on the mini 9 after loading a bunch of stuff it gets a BSOD

 

bummer wanted a nice xp install in my usb key

[PM5K]

I actually know those guys...I set 'em straight for ya Type11

 

Can someone set me straight?

 

 

As for it being hard/old fashioned: It's certainly not hard, but I can't argue that it's not old fashioned, can anyone explain to me the advantage of newer methods over the old fashioned method?

[mrWolff]

Hey guys.

 

I have been silently watching from the sidelines for the past week or so and trying to follow along and try some stuff myself. Some reason no matter which distro I get and burn it always says fail! Whether it is a DVDr or rw it just depends on how far it gets before it says Failed. But today I'm gonna get a nice 8gb flash drive and join the ranks with you guys tryin the 132 boot method. Any pointers on the best procedure to do this?

 

As far as I have gotten it I need to download darktens boot 132, burn it, and then boot onto retail leopard (i'm guessing usb iso would be fine?) and then it will fail. Then restart with 132 then -f and finish install?

 

Hope I'm getting this all correct from memory. Let me know if there is anything that might stand in my way and if there is anything I can do to help!

 

Thanks guys!

[darkten]

Hey guys.

 

I have been silently watching from the sidelines for the past week or so and trying to follow along and try some stuff myself. Some reason no matter which distro I get and burn it always says fail! Whether it is a DVDr or rw it just depends on how far it gets before it says Failed. But today I'm gonna get a nice 8gb flash drive and join the ranks with you guys tryin the 132 boot method. Any pointers on the best procedure to do this?

 

As far as I have gotten it I need to download darktens boot 132, burn it, and then boot onto retail leopard (i'm guessing usb iso would be fine?) and then it will fail. Then restart with 132 then -f and finish install?

 

Hope I'm getting this all correct from memory. Let me know if there is anything that might stand in my way and if there is anything I can do to help!

 

Thanks guys!

 

Well, I don't know about doing it off a usb anything, as that was never my goal

 

What I will tell you is that if it "Fails" at the end, it is for a very specific reason that Mac OS X is nice enough to tell you about; the installer can't make your drive bootable.

 

So when you boot again from the cd, the chameleon installer will do this for you, as well as install what you need *cleanly* to have a nice experience. You won't need to boot from any disks or anything like that anymore.

[mackzilla]

Slightly off topic

 

But has anyone else gotten an stec 8gb ssd? From everything i've read it seems that the 4 and 8gb drives are all intel and the 16gb drives stec. I haven't come across anyone else with an 8gb stec.

 

I got osx installed nicely with the msiwindosx86 but I will try this boot123 tonight with my retail copy of osx.

 

One last thing, has anyone had any problems booting the included dell windows xp disk? No matter what external drive i try i cannot get it to boot into windows xp setup (I've got the 8gb stec ssd and a 32gb ssd so I wanted to put the xp install back on the 8gb drive)

[darkten]

As always (now) if anyone has any specific, "live' questions, you can find me in the iChat/AIM chatroom mini9osxftw.

 

I have a 32GB ssd scheduled for delivery tomorrow; i think i'm going to do a Time Machine backup of the mini9, wipe it, then restore it back to see what, if any, 'gotchas' are involved using what we've come up with...

[PM5K]

One last thing, has anyone had any problems booting the included dell windows xp disk? No matter what external drive i try i cannot get it to boot into windows xp setup (I've got the 8gb stec ssd and a 32gb ssd so I wanted to put the xp install back on the 8gb drive)

 

 

Try switching your USB Emulation in the BIOS.

[PeteRock]

I am sure the first guy or even girl to get sleep working will be very popular indeed, its good to see enthusiasm for this little netbook and even though somethings do not work i cant see myself going back to just a pure xp laptop.

 

Any update on sleep guys? or more importantly the media reader?

 

Sleep maybe one day but the media reader is doubtful as it's pci-e based and not usb and osx simply does not even know it exists, unless someone wants to find source code for it and compile their own kext?

[mini9]

The iAtkos method is kind of dated.. Anyways.. Sounds like you aren't formatting the drive GUID.. You need to do that.

 

Thanks a million ... Got it working finally...

 

Now two more questions.....

 

1. If iAtkos method is dated... Whats the latest method you guys are trying.

2. Any Method to see the remaining Battery till now.

 

Thanks.....

[mrWolff]

The boot 132 method is the latest method that they are using. It provides the *cleanest* install.

 

And I think there was a kext quite a bit earlier on for that called something like minibattery that Type11 (i think) added a few pages back.

[darkten]

Thanks a million ... Got it working finally...

 

Now two more questions.....

 

1. If iAtkos method is dated... Whats the latest method you guys are trying.

2. Any Method to see the remaining Battery till now.

 

Thanks.....

 

mini9...get a retail leopard dvd and use the mini9 iso in post #346. Stop killing yourself :censored2:

 

The battery/powermanagement stuff works just fine.

[mrWolff]

Well, I don't know about doing it off a usb anything, as that was never my goal

 

What I will tell you is that if it "Fails" at the end, it is for a very specific reason that Mac OS X is nice enough to tell you about; the installer can't make your drive bootable.

 

So when you boot again from the cd, the chameleon installer will do this for you, as well as install what you need *cleanly* to have a nice experience. You won't need to boot from any disks or anything like that anymore.

 

 

So will the installing off a usb based iso of osx retail work? I'm just wondering if it is possible. I hope so cause my friend took his cd back with him to oregon... :censored2:

[darkten]

So will the installing off a usb based iso of osx retail work? I'm just wondering if it is possible. I hope so cause my friend took his cd back with him to oregon...

 

I see no reason why it would not.

 

 

BTW...Time Machine restore was a success! I love this lil' thing

[mrWolff]

Awesome! First thing after work os x on my mini here I come!

[jeremybrooks]

Just finished reading this thread. Amazing work!

 

So after using your new mini for a while, what kind of battery life are you getting? I am looking for a netbook, and having OSX on it would be awesome! But I need to get about 4 hours out of the battery for the application I need it for.

 

The Acer Aspire One has a larger battery, but I have not found a guide for installing OSX on it. Does anybody know if it's possible to do a retail install on the Aspire One?

 

Thanks!