Filed under: Hardware, Portables, Hacks, How-tos, Odds and ends, Leopard
The little Leopard laptop
I can always tell when I'm bored, because that's when I think up some challenge for myself. The initial spark for this challenge came when I wrote a post a few months ago about how Paul O'Brien at Modaco had successfully installed Leopard on a Windows-based "netbook". TUAW's Mike Schramm further fueled the fire with this post about an Eee PC running OS X.
Netbooks are tiny laptops with a mini price tag to match. Many netbooks sell for less than $500, with 1 GB of RAM, either a 16 - 20 GB solid state disk drive or 160 GB hard disk drive, Wi-Fi, and a built-in webcam. When you consider that these little machines also weigh about the same or less than a MacBook Air, they're a bargain. However, they usually run Windows XP or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and frankly I'd rather have good old Leopard.
Despite the fact that I'm sure that Apple will announce a low-cost netbook soon, I ended up buying a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to install Leopard onto. The rest of this post describes how I did it using instructions and files found at various Web sites.
Caveat Geektor (Let the geek beware...)
Before you begin rolling your own little Leopard laptop, you should realize that doing this is in violation of the Mac OS X end-user licensing agreement. That agreement states that "You agree not to install, use or run the Apple software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or enable others to do so."
Pretty scary, huh? Currently Apple's EULA is being tested in court, but since we TUAW bloggers are not lawyers and we are not in the business of giving legal advice, you are proceeding at your own risk. If Apple wants to take you to court, they can, and there's a good chance they'd win (we think).
There's only one way to avoid violating the Mac OS X license -- don't install Mac OS X on a non-Apple machine. After this experiment is done, I'm considering installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix just to keep my conscience unmuddled.
The specs
This Dell Inspiron Mini 9 came configured as follows:
Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.6 GHz,/533 MHz FSB/512 K cache)
1 GB DDR2 RAM at 533 MHz
8.9" glossy LED display
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
16GB Solid State Disk Drive
802.11g mini card
1.3 Megapixel webcam
32 Watt-Hour 4-cell battery
Bluetooth 2.1
The total price tag, including shipping, handling, and taxes was $530.90 (base price was less than $500). The Intel Atom is an extremely low power processor code-named "Diamondville", and my initial tests show battery life to be in the four-hour range.
Why?
Other than the vicarious thrill of running OS X on a non-Apple device, why would someone want to do this? Maybe you don't want to spend US$1,000 - $3,000 for a laptop that runs OS X. Perhaps you want something smaller in size than a MacBook Air or regular MacBook. My personal reason is that I often travel to locations where I don't necessarily want to subject a $2,000 computer to harsh conditions or possible theft, but US$500 wouldn't be too much of a loss.
On October 3rd, after missing one visit by the DHL delivery dude, my hardware arrived. I ordered my Mini 9 a couple of weeks ago with Windows XP installed, simply because it showed a delivery date two weeks before the Linux model would ship. As you can see from the picture below, this is a very small computer. That's the MacBook Air on the bottom and the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 on top.
The Mini 9 (top) is a bit thicker than the MacBook Air, of course:
And here's a picture that demonstrates the size of the screens, with the Mini 9 on the left, MacBook Air on the right:
After reading Paul's article, watching his video, hitting some torrent sites for a couple of very large files, and burning those files to DVD, I was ready to start going through a long weekend of reboots and command-line craziness. However, I was relieved of that hell by Twitterer Keviano, who pointed me to a post on UNEASYsilence.
Total shock and awe. UNEASYsilence blogger Dan Dorato briefly documented how he had loaded Leopard onto a Mini 9. To my surprise, it turns out that the architecture of this netbook is very similar to the MSI Wind and several other netbooks that use the same Diamondville processor. Some people with much more technical acumen than me had already created a version of Leopard that runs perfectly on these little machines.
The process
1) Following a link in the UNEASYsilence post, I downloaded a special slipstreamed version of Mac OS X 10.5.4. This version had been, uh, modified to work well on a similar netbook, the MSI Wind. Since TUAW and I don't condone pirating, I purchased a legitimate copy of Leopard.
2) I unboxed the Mini 9, took my usual unboxing photos, and plugged it in.
3) Next, I started up the painfully slow Windows XP startup process. I wanted to make sure that everything worked properly in XP SP3 prior to upgrading the Mini's brain with OS X. Sure enough, Control Panel > System showed 1 GB of RAM, a 16 GB SSDD, and that it was running XP SP3 for "Ultra Low Cost PCs".
4) Grabbed some other files that were recommended by Dan to get the onboard Wi-Fi and sound working properly from here.
5) Like the MacBook Air, this little computer doesn't have a built-in optical drive. I hooked up an extermal Sony USB CD/DVD burner, popped in the modified OS X DVD, and powered up the Mini 9 while holding down the 0 key. That took me into the Boot Setup screens, where I was able to tell the Mini 9 to boot off of the external DVD. For some reason, it didn't want to read the drive, so I plugged the Sony drive into my iMac to make sure it was working. The iMac recognized it, so I plugged it back into the Mini again. This time it worked -- go figure.
6) The OS X Installer started up. It didn't want to let me install on the main hard drive, so I used Disk Utility on the DVD to format the drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) instead of NTFS, then continued the installation. The installation took about 36 minutes. Unfortunately, when the machine rebooted I was greeted with a HFS+ partition error. My guess is that I screwed up by not making the entire drive Mac OS X Extended, since I left a small partition on the drive that most likely contains Dell's recovery files.
7) Back to square one. I started up the installer one more time. About a minute into the install I kept getting a "Still waiting for root device" message, which I correctly interpreted as meaning it couldn't read the DVD. Unplugging and replugging the power cord on the drive fixed it. Once again back into the installer, I fired up Disk Utility one more time and this time made the drive one partition. I also chose a new partition scheme, that being GUID Partition Table. It had used a Master Boot Record partition scheme initially.
8) 36 minutes later...I ejected the DVD from the external drive when the installer was done since I had set the BIOS to boot from the DVD first. Woo-hoo! Success, it booted up! The Setup Assistant ran, so I went through the routine of setting up my account. Imagine my surprise when it used the built-in webcam to take my account photo. Sound and wireless weren't working, but I expected that from Dan's blog post.
9) Plugged the DVD drive back in to see if I could load the new drivers. The Mini 9 didn't see the drive. Plugged in a USB flash drive. The Mini 9 didn't see that either. Rebooted the Mini 9 with the DVD drive attached to see if it would mount it. Success! Put the CD I had burned with the Broadcom Wi-Fi driver and sound driver into the drive and dragged the files to the desktop.
10) Opened terminal. Typed in sudo, then dragged the icon for the file bcm43xx_enabler.sh to the terminal screen. Pressed the Enter key. Followed Dan's instructions and just pressed enter four more times to run the shell script. Closed terminal and rebooted the Mini.
11) Partial success. The AirPort icon showed up in the menu bar, my network appeared, but I couldn't connect. I'll try again later. Now to run the sound driver installer, which is a double-clickable Mac app. Time to reboot again.
12) Cool! After the reboot, both sound and Wi-Fi are working perfectly. Time to get this updated to Mac OS X 10.5.5. It's currently running 10.5.4. I fired up Software Update, crossed my fingers, and ran the updates.
13) Dang. The machine is now working only in 800 x 600 resolution, rather than the default 1024 x 600. The only resolution that shows up in the Displays preference is 800 x 600. Searching around the Interwebs for a bit, I found a site devoted to the MSI Wind that had a number of posts that dealt with this problem. The primary fix seemed to be to a) download some kernel extensions dealing with the display and b) fix permissions. That being done, I crossed my fingers, my toes, and my eyes, and rebooted again.
14) Yay! That worked just fine! I'm back in 1024 x 600 mode. I now have a MacBook nano that is cruising along nicely. Under 10.5.4, About This Mac (below) showed the processor as an Intel Core Solo; 10.5.5 thinks it's "unknown". The hardware serial number, which you can read by clicking twice on the OS version number, always comes up as W1234567890.
15) Time to do some cleanup. I only have 6.63 GB of available space at this point. There are some apps that I will probably never use on this little beast, so I'm removing them to clear some space. The victims? Chess, DVD Player, Front Row, Spaces, Grapher, Migration Assistant, Podcast Capture, Remote Install OS X. That sure didn't open up a lot of space...
16) Time to add some applications. I have a Sprint Sierra Wireless 595U USB Wireless Broadband card, so I wanted to make sure I could get that to work. A quick visit out to the Sprint website provided the new (August 2008) SmartView software for my year-old card. Much nicer than the old software, and it provides GPS services as well. Sprint FTW! I uninstalled iWork '08 on my MacBook Air and installed it on the "nano".
17) I set up MobileMe syncing to get iCal, Address Book, Safari bookmarks, and Mail accounts working. I promptly realized that my email files are huge, so I've decided to stick to web mail on this device.
That's about it! Of course, every time Apple sends out a new version of OS X with Software Update, I'll have to keep my eyes open and see if anyone else is having issues before I even think about doing an upgrade on my netbook.
Good points
- Total cost, including a licensed copy of OS X 10.5, was US$635. My MacBook Air (with 2 GB of RAM and an 80 GB HD) put me back about $2,000.
- Solid-state disk drive is more immune to impacts.
- It's small. 9 inches wide x 6.7 inches deep x 1.2 inches high at the thickest point. Weight is 2.3 lbs.
- Unbelievably quiet. No hard disk drive noise at all thanks to the SSDD. Nice.
- Three USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet and VGA-out built in. Built-in SD card reader.
- Boot time: 45 seconds from powered off to fully functional.
- Mini 9's Wi-Fi shows 5 bars on network in hotel lobby; MacBook Air can't even find the network.
- It ain't Apple. It's the little things, like the "Intel Atom inside" sticker with the glue smear next to it...
- The keyboard is small and it's been difficult to get the hang of touch typing on it.
- That 1024 x 600 8.9" screen seems tiny compared to the MacBook Air's 1280 x 800 13.3" display.
- No multitouch. On the other hand, I'm already used to using the left/right "mouse" buttons below the touchpad.
- Ethernet isn't working. That's not too bad since I have Wi-Fi and the Sprint Mobile Broadband card to use, but it would be nice to get it all working.
- Machine locks up coming out of sleep mode, so I've had to disable sleep.
- That 16 GB SSDD is pretty small. Other netbooks are available with 160 GB hard disks.
- More RAM would probably speed up OS X a bit. Bumping the Mini 9 to 2 GB would cost about $35.
- More storage. I could double my storage for $33 by purchasing a 16 GB SD HC card and putting it into the SD slot.
- Follow this guy's lead and make it really look like a Mac.
- Wait until someone fixes the sleep issue and install the new kext (kernel extension).
- Find a cool bag to carry it in, or just get pants with big pockets.
So, was this experiment worth it? I think so. It's fun to see what the community is doing to make sure that all of the features of this netbook work under OS X. I'd honestly prefer to have a really cheap Apple netbook to avoid all of the driver issues and concerns about licensing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm probably going to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix on this box so I have a fully-functioning and legal netbook. I look forward to comments from TUAW readers who are also creating their own little Leopard laptops.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Bassir said 11:17AM on 10-09-2008
Don't Leopard DVD's not have serial keys, so you can use any Leopard CD you got with a Mac?
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dgblackout001100 said 11:23AM on 10-09-2008
They don't have keys, but they are locked to specific hardware, so you have to mess around with the disk before you can use it on anything that's not Apple approved.
Graham said 11:33AM on 10-09-2008
No, you can't use any disc. You can use a retail disk, but the ones that come with macs are specific to the model of mac they ship with.
The only version of OS X that currently has a serial number is OS X Server.
Mo said 11:25AM on 10-09-2008
My Leopard hackintosh (I have several real Macs, but I vastly prefer Mac OS X for running Handbrake/VisualHub so the PC got Windows yanked from under it) also needs to be rebooted with USB devices plugged in to recognise them. System Profiler sees them, but that's as far as it gets—never been able to figure out why. I just live with the reboots.
Bassir: A bundled Leopard DVD checks the type of machine you're trying to install it on (you can't use a MacBook's Leopard disc to reinstall a Mini or a Mac Pro, for example). A retail copy will upgrade/reinstall any type of Mac (or more besides).
In any case, the retail copy was purchased as compensation to Apple—it wasn't a technical requirement of installation.
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Afroman said 10:39AM on 10-10-2008
There is a USBFix for that issue. I had it.. on my Hackintosh, but then fixed it with a simple .PKG file..
Now it works 100%.. might want to look into it.
wstsdblks said 11:26AM on 10-09-2008
This whole OS X on PCs thing is exactly like what happened when the whole MP3 thing took off. Consumers are taking matters into their own hands, legal or not, and filling the gap in the market, not being filled by the content owners. In the case of MP3s, people downloaded them, and put them on the devices they wanted, because they weren't available otherwise, and because content owners were afraid of the change in technology and didn't want to make it available in the new format. In the case of OS X, Apple is not providing the hardware and flexibility people want, in the OS they like, and in some cases rely-on for work, so people are taking matters into their own hands, and using the OS where they want it and need it. The question is, will Apple learn from the mistakes of the music industry, and give people a legitimate option for using their OS on any hardware people choose? It will definitely make OS X lose some of it's 'cool' factor, but it will give consumers what they really want.
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Ashwin said 12:28PM on 10-09-2008
They tried licensing Mac OS in the 1990's, through the clone program, and it hurt Apple's margins. Steve Jobs killed it in 1997.
Apple's profits come from hardware, not software. They make $400 selling a macbook pro, but would make only $129 selling a copy of Mac OS X. If I were Apple, I would rather have the former.
Kai Cherry said 4:15PM on 10-09-2008
Ashwin...this tired manta is getting really...old :)
Apple in the 90s had *far more and greater problems* than the clone biz and as someone who was around then, with a bit of insider knowledge about the process and that particular business/business model, it is known to be quite the strawman. The Steve Jobs proclamation that the cloners were the cause of Apple losing money was a bit of showmanship and RDF. Steve simply wanted them to pay *more*..he wanted to retcon contracts already in place to get a quick cash infusion back into Apple.
Some things to consider:
Apple made money, plenty of money, off every "clone" sold...because unlike normal business models for this, Apple made the logic boards(!) as well as the OS.
Many people with casual knowledge are not aware of this. The Tanzania platform was *manufactured by Apple*. Yep.
The problem Apple had, besides insane management issues, was that they simply would not change. They relied on brand moreso than innovation. They believed that their core *business customers* were not going to use "cheap knockoffs" (even tho Apple made the guts of these cheap knockoffs themselves) due to brand loyalty.
They learned they were very much mistaken. They didn't want to offer the flexibility their licensees did (this is like an Apple broken record, isn't it) and the market, on *both ends* responded in kind.
More importantly tho, this is not 1997. Apple makes most of their money on *low margin, high volume sales* these days. Ever hear of the iPod? iPhone?
The software is the true selling point of Apple Mac hardware. Mac OS X is what a mac is; a Macbook running Vista or Ubuntu is not a Mac :)
Carlo said 6:58PM on 10-26-2008
I for one totally love the MAC and its OS, and would never wont to see it here, there and everywhere.On whatever crappy system some one would like to install it on.I believe just like people buy and believe in Mercedes, Ferrari or BMW,that the MAC is unique and stands out in it own category,in the computer world. This sole uniqueness and love for high performance stuff is what drove my passion for wanting a mac so badly, after years of being a PC user, im more than im love with my mac.
Drew said 11:32AM on 10-09-2008
I had read that the SD card reader wasn't working on the Dell Mini after the Leopard install. I could be wrong. I had thought about trying Tiger on my EEEPC 701 but instead did an overhaul on Ubuntu to look like OSX. Some would say that is blasphemy. I, on the other hand, don't care.
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Scott said 11:46AM on 10-09-2008
"Most EULAs have never been upheld by a court of law."
Huh? To the contrary. Most terms of EULAs are in fact upheld as binding agreements.
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dukrous said 11:47AM on 10-09-2008
Breaking a EULA is not illegal. However, if you fail to uphold your end, Apple has nothing holding them to theirs. IOW...if you install it on a non-Apple machine, don't call for support or asking why they broke it. That's all a EULA has ever said. This idea about breaking EULAs as being illegal is just ignorance about what the EULA means.
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Scott said 1:39PM on 10-09-2008
Sorry, but you're wrong. You confound illegality with criminality. Although it is almost never a crime to violate the terms of an End User License Agreement, the repercussions from breach are potentially far more severe than just absolving Apple of its obligations under the contract, which are few to begin with. Because the overwhelming trend is for courts to hold clickwrap agreements to be enforceable, you are generally bound by the provisions of the agreement. Apple could sue you for breach of contract. Whether it has any incentive to do so in a case such as this one is obviously debatable. But violating an End User License Agreement is undoubtedly contrary to the (common) "law" of contracts, at least in the United States.
onefish2 said 11:59AM on 10-09-2008
For more info on the Mini 9 check out http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/.
Its a great forum specifically for the Dell Mini 9.
I am a Mac guy through and through but I happen to work for Dell and I got a sweet deal on the Mini 9. I am running XP on it but will definitely put Leopard on it one of these days.
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david said 1:22AM on 1-06-2009
Because the overwhelming trend is for courts to hold clickwrap agreements to be enforceable, you are generally bound by the provisions of the agreement. Apple could sue you for breach of contract. Whether it has any incentive to do so in a case such as this one is obviously http://www.batterygoshop.co.uk debatable. But violating an End User License Agreement is undoubtedly contrary to the (common) "law" of contracts, at least in the United States.
nsk said 12:19PM on 10-09-2008
Thanks for this well-written, relatively clear post.
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Data Storm said 12:06PM on 10-09-2008
How well does it run though? like a macbook or?
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Ashwin said 12:30PM on 10-09-2008
Of course not. An Atom processor will not come anywhere close to the Core 2 Duo in the MacBook Air. Many ultraportable buyers do not care for performance as much as size, and this is where netbooks come in.
Steven Sande said 12:59PM on 10-09-2008
Compared to my MacBook Air, it actually seems a bit faster. I did run Xbench on the "nano" and the Air, and of course the Air comes out on top. I think the main difference is in the disk drive read speed (writes are much slower on SSDD, but reads are snappy), and of course the slightly slower one-core Atom processor. On the other hand, graphics are fast -- Core Image is hardware accelerated and Quartz Extreme is supported -- and the small screen makes for quick display updates.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the performance. And when you consider this is a third of the price of my MBA, I can put up with the occasional slow response.
TUAWSteve
david said 12:10PM on 10-09-2008
you should definitely look into running retail leopard, installed from a leopard dvd using the boot132 method. This will allow you to do updates with any worry of breaking your install.
read this thread post:
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=124363&st=320
starting at post 346
i have an aspire one triple booting, wrote a few how tos ect, and an external drive booting retail 10.5.5 its quite the little computer.
dave
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