Filed under: Hardware, OS, Hacks, Odds and ends, Leopard
Cool Hack: Running Leopard on an MSI Wind UMPC
Mac owners often look on with envy at the Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) in the Windows world. These are truly tiny laptops, often with 10" or smaller displays and weights that make a MacBook Air seem downright obese by comparison.
MoDaCo network founder and Microsoft MVP Paul O'Brien decided to get his OS of choice, Mac OS X 10.5.4, up and running on one of these little wonders. The machine is a variant of a recently released UMPC called the MSI Wind, which weighs in at 2.3 lbs and sports the new Intel Atom N270 CPU running at 1.6 GHz.
While Paul admits to a few small issues, he was not only able to load and run Leopard on the Wind, but he also documented the entire procedure in text and video (see above) if you want to make your own Ultra-Mobile Mac. After watching how easy the process is and finding out how inexpensive the Wind is, I'm tempted to try this myself! Be sure to let us know if you're successful at following Paul's footsteps.
Direct link to the video and step-by-step instructions.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Duane said 9:36AM on 7-15-2008
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?
Reply
Harvey said 9:48AM on 7-15-2008
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.
Reply
bugster said 9:52AM on 7-15-2008
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.
Reply
Rowan said 10:50AM on 7-15-2008
The PPC machines were great, don't get me wrong, but the G4 was still in use way past it's expiration date. It's only the snappiness of the Mac OS that made Powerbooks functional, the processor (towards the end) was a dog for anything intensive.
They would have loved to have made G5 powerbooks I think, long ago, but 2 inch thick desktop-replacement brick style laptops with 45 min battery life aren't apple's style.
In geekbench and X bench, my Core2Duo 1.6 Macbook Air (slower than any current Mac Mini's even) runs rings around my G5 1.6 (single processor though) The G5 was good, but too much heat.
bugster said 11:05AM on 7-15-2008
My surprise comes from the early reports of the atom being about the speed of an 800 mhz celeron, this suggests it might be faster than that or were the late model G4s really that slow?
Joseph said 10:15AM on 7-15-2008
Erica Sadun does not speak for the entirety of Mac owners when it comes to "looking on with envy" at those abominations of technology
Reply
matt aromatorio said 10:36AM on 7-15-2008
Erm, this was posted by Steve Sande....?
Simon Arch said 10:40AM on 7-15-2008
So...Erica had a sex change and is now posting as Steven Sande?
And don't for one instant presume that you speak for the majority of Mac users. This Mac user thinks those ultraportables are very interesting indeed. Calling them "abominations" just makes you sound like a Mac fanboi tool.
Eric said 12:05PM on 7-15-2008
I've been considering buying an Asus EeePC as a secondary computer to my MacBook Pro, to keep in a bag or the car.
I actually convinced my sister to buy one for her TV-watching, AIM-using convenience. It should arrive today, so I can try it out.
The Duck said 1:59PM on 7-15-2008
Eric... I mean Erica had ANOTHER sex change???
Rowan Pope said 10:41AM on 7-15-2008
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.
Reply
Paul O'Brien said 10:51AM on 7-15-2008
- It's not that great... i mean sure it is for the price, but my MBA 1.7 gets over 1600 in geekbench.
MBA = bigger than I want and overpriced for what I need.
- 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.
Real EFI = meh
boot from USB = I can do that altho again, it's not in my requirements,
firewire target mode = not something I need either
- but for laptops it's useless due to no working sleep etc.
Sleep works great. To claim 'it's useless' is pretty ridiculous, as I clearly am finding it very useful. :-)
P
BeyondtheTech said 11:05AM on 7-15-2008
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.
Reply
kurt.tappe said 12:22PM on 7-15-2008
"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.
Reply
SIP said 12:34PM on 7-15-2008
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!
Reply
vic said 8:54AM on 7-17-2008
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.
Reply