Cool Hack: Running Leopard on an MSI Wind UMPC

the wind just came out (US release) with the 6-cell battery due out later this year. i think these 'launch' developments make great headway for later developments this year which make me hope for this little guy which I believe is the main reason why people will continue to publicly 'hack' osx onto 'illegal' hardware...and who knows at what pace the community is going to develop features for this particular netbook. with much momentum at launch, the traction at the release of the new model should be good if not great.

I've been looking at eBook Readers from Sony and the like, but the prices are so ridiculous, I may as well get one of these EeePCs, so I can read on the move, but also use the EeePc for car diagnostics (if there's enough disk/memory space) but also watching online SatTV feeds which I can't do on the MacPro or Macbook unless I use Boot Camp or virtualisation software.

Unless, of course, Apple introduces an iPhone/Touch with 7"LCD... now that I would buy!

"Mac owners often look on with envy at the Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) in the Windows world."
We do? I honestly do not. There is such a thing as too small, and these fall over the line into that realm. The tech bloggers here and on many other sites have been running story after story on the UMPC's but I really do not know anyone who is lusting after one. They really offer the worst of both worlds--they are too large to fit in a pocket, so you end up carrying them in a backpack/case into which a regular laptop would fit. And they're underpowered so you're getting no real portability benefit while sacrificing speed. No, I'll take OS X on a MacBook Pro, thanks. If Apple wants to make it lighter, that's great, but not slower and cramped to type on.

Perfect timing. As Psystar is handed their lawsuit paperwork, the rest of the community is coming out with even more ways to get OS X onto unauthorized hardware. Perhaps Apple should take a page from the iPhone hacker world and open up a small number of vendors to create other desktops and laptops that are properly designed to run OS X. I am really liking the idea of something as good as OS X to run on something as good as the MSI Wind.

It's not that great... i mean sure it is for the price, but my MBA 1.7 gets over 1600 in geekbench.

As someone who did the hackintosh stuff for awhile before getting 'the real thing' i'd rather pay the extra to have real EFI, boot from USB, firewire target mode, etc.

Interestingly, although the Macbook Air has no firewire, Apple's Remote Disc function works with ISO or DMG files. THat is, i can have an image mounted to the desktop on my G5, eg snowleopard.dmg ;) and then the MBA can boot off that wirelessly. I did this to install to a USB2 bus powered drive.

For a desktop muck around thing, hackintoshes are fine if you don't mind fixing things from command line when an update kills it, but for laptops it's useless due to no working sleep etc.

Erica Sadun does not speak for the entirety of Mac owners when it comes to "looking on with envy" at those abominations of technology

I hate to be picky, but this is a tech blog. The name UMPC only applies to devices with a very specific set of features laid out by microsoft, of which the wind has almost none. Ultralight, netbook, cheapbook sure, but UMPC no way.

Back on topic, is geekbench at all reliable? His results (926) are almost as fast as a 2ghz G5 (1036) and positively smoke the 1.33 ghz G4 (570). I might have to re-evaluate the atom if it does that well.

I tried one of those UMPCs a long time ago, but never again. There's not enough room on the screen, and the keyboard was great for pixies and elves. Problem was, I'm a full-sized human. I don't need a laptop that I have to operate with a microscope and tweezers.

Some years back, IBM sold a small laptop. When you opened it, the keyboard unfolded to full size.

Wouldn't it be neat to carry around what looks like a 10-inch computer, but when you opened it, it unfolds like George Jetson's car to have a human-sized keyboard and a 17-inch display?

Now that I would buy.

He can figure out how to install OS X on a MSI Wind, but he can't figure out how to turn off auto focus on his video camera?