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Dell Inspiron Mini 9 ?


jns_mt
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Yeah my brother got a one and you have to take out the atheros (sp?) card and get something like the dell 1390 card for it. He has one on order you can find them on ebay for like 5-10 bucks. However getting to the network card and the ram on that computer is a lot more challenging than the mini 9 that is no joke.

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Few notes from today.

 

not sure if anyone has answered this one yet so here is the deal with sound. speakers work and so do headphones but it does not auto sense you must switch output from the preferences. There is a menu item thing that makes this very easy but I can't recall its name right now. The internal mic on the dell (I did not even know it had one!) and webcam work perfect in skype. I do not have a mic to plug into the jack to test

 

My brother has the 8GB dell and it is MUCH slower on disk access than my 16GB

 

I have ubuntu 8.04.1 booting from a usb stick as well as xp.

 

Also I noticed something interesting. When you install iAtKOS it has a battery meter (which show a real percentage) when you install so maybe we can figure out what it is using? Oddly it does not recognize it is plugged in but still interesting.

 

Think that is it for now. As I think was stated before the Card Reader is not seen in USB Probe which is a bummer as thqat is how almost all of them that are supported work.

 

Oh one more thing I am bummed about. I opened the bottom of the case to look at it and where I had seen an expansion slot for WWAN in other pictures my just has holders filled with solder (still says WWAN) it does NOT have the actual slot it would plug into or the antenna leads. Pretty bummed about this. Mine still has the sim slot though. What gives I have seen plenty of pictures of peoples that have the slot.

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Yeah my brother got a one and you have to take out the atheros (sp?) card and get something like the dell 1390 card for it. He has one on order you can find them on ebay for like 5-10 bucks. However getting to the network card and the ram on that computer is a lot more challenging than the mini 9 that is no joke.

 

So its easy to screw up and stuff? I don't really like the idea of taking stuff apart. I would only take apart a Wind if I had to because its supposed to be great with OSX.

 

The mini 9 doesnt have to be opened up for osx right?

 

TO CLARIFY: No sleep means that in order to save battery power you have to power down the machine?

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yes if you put it to sleep it won't come out of it. I really think we can get it working just need to find the time to trace it more. Would also be nice to get the battery indicator working as well always says calulating and never realizes it is plugged in.

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Ok some more progress. I got the battery indicator totally working. It now knows if it is plugged in or not and it gives time remaining. I have attached the files as MiniBattery.zip

 

PowerManagement.bundle goes into /System/Library/SystemConfiguration (Make sure it is owned by root:wheel)

AppleACPIBatteryManager.kext goes into normal place, use kexthelper to be safe

 

Also closer on the sleep issue. I can now get it to go to sleep from sleep menu item or when shutting the lid. The light throbs as it should. Opening or hitting power button if screen is open brings it back

 

HOWEVER once it is back on there is no cursor or keyboard. I don't think it i frozen though.

 

If anyone wants to mess with it I have them packaged as MiniSleep.zip. Use kexthelper to install the 3.

 

hopefully more tomorrow. almost there...

MiniBattery.zip

MiniSleep.zip

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I get the same thins type11 when you close the lid and open it again. Here is something you could try and you should get the same results as me.

 

Go into the bios and disable.

 

legacy usb support

wlan support

 

you should then find you get the pointer back but as soon as you click on anything you get the beachball.

 

maybe it's something which can be fixed when dell release their first bios update.

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I tried both MBR and GUID for the partition types.

 

My 32GB ssd (slow {censored} disk) came in today so i'll try and get osx installed on it tonight. Have any of you tried the osx install dvds designed for the Asus EEE or are they pretty much the same as iAtKOS?

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I tried both MBR and GUID for the partition types.

 

My 32GB ssd (slow {censored} disk) came in today so i'll try and get osx installed on it tonight. Have any of you tried the osx install dvds designed for the Asus EEE or are they pretty much the same as iAtKOS?

When my Mini9 arrives next month, I plan on trying about a half dozen distro's on it. That's always served me well, for some reason, each distro shines on a completely different computer than the others. Like iAtkos 1.0r3 worked like a champ on my Atom desktop machine, while it couldn't even see the hard drives on my main desktop. Kalyway and iDeneb worked great on my main desktop (iDeneb couldn't see the NIC, so I stuck with good old Kalyway).. I definitely recommend everyone try several distros.. MAYBE.. One of them can sleep and wake up..

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When my Mini9 arrives next month, I plan on trying about a half dozen distro's on it. That's always served me well, for some reason, each distro shines on a completely different computer than the others. Like iAtkos 1.0r3 worked like a champ on my Atom desktop machine, while it couldn't even see the hard drives on my main desktop. Kalyway and iDeneb worked great on my main desktop (iDeneb couldn't see the NIC, so I stuck with good old Kalyway).. I definitely recommend everyone try several distros.. MAYBE.. One of them can sleep and wake up..

 

I have tried kalyway 10.5.4 client/server which i struggled to get working properly, currently running iatkos 4.0i which is the best so far and slowly make that very slowly downloading ideneb 10.5.5 which looks promising.

 

ideneb has powermanagement for laptops so maybe it will work.

 

one note i am now using coolbook, took out smbiosenabler, ehcisleep, intelenhancedspeedstep, added smbios-28 for macbook air and got speedstep working with the vanilla kernel.

 

but for some reason it always gives me 2hr 58 min of battery no matter what i do!

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Hey Pete sorry for being a noob here but are all those thigns you mention in extensions that you removed? Any chance you can upload the kext that are working with speedstep? Another dumb question how do you know if it is working? I know it will drop processor speed but where do you see it? Let me know how that 10.5.5 distro goes for you.

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Hey Pete sorry for being a noob here but are all those thigns you mention in extensions that you removed? Any chance you can upload the kext that are working with speedstep? Another dumb question how do you know if it is working? I know it will drop processor speed but where do you see it? Let me know how that 10.5.5 distro goes for you.

 

 

hey type11 i am a noob too so no need to worry, yeah they all within /system/library/extensions and coolbook is a paid for bit of software $10 if i remember and in the apple menu bar it displays the current speed, so now idle it is 798mhz but if i move the mouse it hits 1069 or 1333 :angel:

 

hopefully between ideneb 10.5.5 with coolbook 2 of my biggest annoyances should be solved, just a pain that i left the torrent running from 6am this morning and my internet connection broke whilst i was at work!

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Just a point to mention...

A guide I found for installing Ubuntu on the AspireOne suggests using a non-journaled filesystem (eg, ext2) to increase performance and extend the life of the SSD.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to use HFS+ without journaling for OSx86 on the Mini 9?

 

Anyone care to put up some pictures of the Mini 9 running OSx86? :D

I'll hopefully be getting my own in a few months time :(

By the way, can anyone give an explanation for the strange way they are selling it in the UK? (ie, top spec black model only, no Ubuntu, can't configured) :)

 

Reference: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne

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Just a point to mention...

A guide I found for installing Ubuntu on the AspireOne suggests using a non-journaled filesystem (eg, ext2) to increase performance and extend the life of the SSD.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to use HFS+ without journaling for OSx86 on the Mini 9?

 

Anyone care to put up some pictures of the Mini 9 running OSx86? :D

I'll hopefully be getting my own in a few months time :(

By the way, can anyone give an explanation for the strange way they are selling it in the UK? (ie, top spec black model only, no Ubuntu, can't configured) :)

 

Reference: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne

 

Interesting about the journaled file system, running xbench now with it on and off and will post the results shortly.

 

Results of tests.

 

Journaled Results 9.97

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.5 (9F33)

Physical RAM 1024 MB

Model MacBookAir1,1

Drive Type STEC PATA 16GB STEC PATA 16GB

Disk Test 9.97

Sequential 30.35

Uncached Write 13.33 8.18 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 32.07 18.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 54.02 15.81 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 141.29 71.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 5.96

Uncached Write 1.88 0.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 7.37 2.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 1352.67 9.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 316.87 58.80 MB/sec [256K blocks]

 

 

Non Journaled Results 10.46

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.5.5 (9F33)

Physical RAM 1024 MB

Model MacBookAir1,1

Drive Type STEC PATA 16GB STEC PATA 16GB

Disk Test 10.46

Sequential 42.07

Uncached Write 26.11 16.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 31.72 17.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 54.54 15.96 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 144.35 72.55 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Random 5.97

Uncached Write 1.88 0.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Write 7.38 2.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Uncached Read 1339.43 9.49 MB/sec [4K blocks]

Uncached Read 357.91 66.41 MB/sec [256K blocks]

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Anyone care to put up some pictures of the Mini 9 running OSx86? :)

 

By the way, can anyone give an explanation for the strange way they are selling it in the UK? (ie, top spec black model only, no Ubuntu, can't configured) :P

 

Yeah I would love to see some screenshots or pictures of the mini9 running osx86 as well.

 

Its the way dell rolls, never does anything right. Delays your orders and they have over 5 different departments who all want your email for spam reasons.

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