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Posts tagged netbook
Google Chrome OS
Nov 20th
Someone posted a link to the Google Chrome OS on Twitter this afternoon. Since it was for either VMWare or VirtualBox, I thought why not give it a go? The download itself is about 300MBs and was really quick. However, the VirtualBox image from GDGT didn’t work for me, so I ended up snagging this image instead. This one did work. You should note that these builds weren’t compiled by me or people at Google by but someone else. You may wish to make yourself an extra Gmail/Google account to try this out.
Please note, if you’re getting the “No Network Connection, Offline Login Failed” you might want to try restarting the virtual machine or even your computer. Restarting my computer seemed to fix the issue, I believe that VirtualBox doesn’t complete it’s network (virtual adapters) setup until your computer is restarted but I could be wrong. Once you’ve actually gotten the image to boot you’re prompted to login. use your GMail account info, or if you have a normal Google account (@Google.com) this will work as well.
Upon logging into the system, you’re basically presented with the Google Chrome web browser. This is pretty much it. There’s a Google Short links, which I assume will basically give you short cuts to all the Google Apps (Docs, Sites, Calendar, Gmail, etc…), but yeah that’s pretty much it. Seeing as how this is probably pre-alpha, I guess it’s a start in the right direction. I am not sure what the final goal for the Chrome OS is, whether it be simply a portal to your Google applications or a bit more of a fully featured OS. It may indeed simply be something you toss on a netbook, boot into and have almost instant access to your calendars, emails, documents from Google, but I am not sure.
Apparently you also cannot change the resolution, so you’re stuck at the awful 800×600 for the moment. There’s not much tweaking you can do to the system, you can see the battery status (which makes me think this is geared to netbooks/notebooks, and you can check on the network status (see if WiFi/Ethernet is connected or not). You can also play with the settings of the web browser (which is essentially the only thing on the system haha). That said, it’s a neat idea and I certainly wouldn’t mind tossing this on one of my netbooks when it goes final. When I use my netbook I’m never usually doing anything outside of my web browser, unless it’s in a terminal so this would work quite well. I’m definitely excited to see it develop and mature!
My New OS X Netbook – Dell Mini 9
Mar 22nd
After hearing about a sale ($50 off their Dell Mini) that Dell was having on their netbook line, I just had to get one. Of course in the process I managed to talk my friend into getting on too. Our plan? To install Mac OS X Leopard on these machines for our very own “ultimate OS X netbooks”! We ordered them at the end of February and just this past Friday (March 20) we got them. Definitely wasn’t too happy about having to wait that long, and as of right now I still don’t have the 2GB memory chip that I ordered from them. Fortunately I did have an extra 1GB PC-5300 SO-DIMM that I’m using for the time being.
I used the guide that Gizmodo wrote up, you can find it by clicking on this link. Pretty much as long as you follow their steps, you’ll be up and running in an hour or less. I highly recommend getting an external DVD drive instead of going the route of the flash keys, although if you have to use a flash key make sure you’ve got at least 2 of them and that one of them at least 8GBs in size, the other one can be small, 512MBs or 1GB.
There were a couple things that happened in my install that I think I feel should be mentioned. First the Gizmodo article did mention that the install might fail and although theirs didn’t and nor did mine, my friends did. Fortunately I told him that it might happen and not to worry. And of course, I was right, his install worked fine. So if you get a “failed to install” message, don’t panic. Just continue to the next step in the guide and it should work fine.
The next thing was that upon my first boot into my OS X install, WiFi nor sound didn’t work. As per Gizmodo this was was normal too, but after doing a reboot again with the “-f” option it should work. Well I tried that 3-4 times but it failed to get WiFi or the audio working. I did some searching around on the MyDellMini forums and came across a few posts detailing fixes for this issue. What I ended up doing was again booting up using the “-f” option, then I ran the DellEFI application and rebooted. Upon that reboot, my WiFi and sound worked fine. Odd, as it was supposed to work right after install, but either way, I’m happy that it works perfectly fine now.
I’m extremely pleased with the Dell Mini 9 as an OS X netbook. It’s very easy to get working (so long as you can follow directions and have the right tools), all of the main features (Bluetooth, Airport, screen brightness, sleep, audio, WiFi, Ethernet) are supported almost out of the box. The larger 16GB drive is amazing. Being able to use my retail OS X Leopard disk was great too.
Now, my biggest gripe about the Mini is the keyboard. It’s absolutely terrible. The keys are small, have odd placement and just all around annoy me. Fortunately I ordered my Mini with a Bluetooth chip installed. I’ve finally found a use for the $80 Apple keyboard I purchased almost a year ago and barely ever used since then. Bluetooth pairing worked just as if I was on a real Apple machine and took seconds to setup and get working. This is a really great solution for when I’m just sitting at my desk, for when I’m not, I think I’ll just have to learn to deal with the built-in keyboard. The photo above compares the HP Mini keyboard to the Dell Mini, I much prefer the HP to the Dell. If the audio had worked in the HP I would probably be using that instead of the Dell.
Both the Dell and the HP are relatively the same size. They’re about the same thickness, but the HP is a tad bit wider then the Dell. I believe it’s that little bit that gives it the better keyboard.
Overall I am quite impressed with the Dell Mini 9. If the keyboard had been a bit better, this truly would have been the ultimate OS X netbook. So, I guess now I’ve gotta get an MSI Wind and try it out on there? Haha. Here’s to hoping that Apple just comes out with one.
My New Netbook!
Feb 10th
Note: I do not condone breaking laws, downloading software that isn’t rightfully yours or anything of that sort. I just love tinkering with things and challenging myself to see if I can make something happen.
For about 6 months or so I’ve been really interested in purchasing a netbook. Not only for the small size but because there’s a huge community with interest in running Mac OS X on them. While I would love it for Apple to put out something more official, I enjoy doing it the “un-official” way. One, it gives me something to do, and two, I really enjoy messing around with things and make them work in ways they’re not originally intended work! Plus, I’ve been wanting a super portable Mac for quite some time now!
After doing a bit of research, I found out that the HP Mini was one of the better and more supported netbooks out there. I picked one up at my local Staples (I just had to have one and didn’t want to wait for shipping) for $300. I mean, that’s a pretty good deal right?
After getting home, I brought up a couple other useful websites:
After perusing through some other forums and threads, I decided to stick with the MyHPMini guide. Seemed simple and quite easy to follow.
In a nutshell, one must obtain a specially “fixed” version of the Mac OS X operating system. I went with iDeneb v1.3 10.5.5. I do have a copy of 10.5.6 that I might install should I not be able to easily upgrade my existing 10.5.5 install. You’ll first want to format the drive as Mac OS X Extended. I normally do this through Disk Utility but it can also be done on the screen where it asks you where you want to install OS X too.
Install it just as you normally would an OS X install, but remember to choose Customized so you can apply a few extra fixes (these are needed because we’re installing on a non-Macintosh computer). The fixes you need to apply are outlined in the tutorial. Now, for some reason the install progress screen did not show up for me. I am not sure if this is true for all installs on the Mini, but it did happen to me so I thought it would be worth mentioning. What I did was opened up the log viewer and had it display all log messages. Eventually after about 25-30 minutes my install had completed. The machine rebooted, but after running through about half the OS X Welcome screens it keep kicking me back out to the first one. Fortunately the tutorial explains how to get around this. Basically you need to reboot into single user mode, input a few commands and you’re done!
Now, even though you’ve got OS X installed, there are a few drivers that I highly recommend you install so that you can get the most out of your OS X’d netbook. The drivers are for things like VGA, sleep, wifi and a few others. Using the Kext installer (which is one of the applications I recommend installing during the initial install) it’s really very simple!
Once you’ve done that, you’vepretty much got a cute little Macbook to take anywhere!
Now one thing I noticed is that if you’re like me and got the 8GB HP Mini you’ll only have about 1.5GBs of space left. For some that may be fine, I use my netbook for blogging, web surfing and chatting only so it’s not such a big deal. You can also snag an 8GB SD card from NewEgg for about $15.00. The Mini has a built-in card reader which works in OS X. Currently I’ve got a 2GB SD card and I use it for storing applications.
Here’s a few other things I’ve noticed. Audio/Sound does not work at the moment. I’ve read that it’s actively being worked on, but there’s no solution at this time. Second, the wifi directions (included in the MyHPMini tutorial) forget to mention, that the first command you’ll need to run is:
/sbin/mount -uw /
What that does is mounts the drive and allows its contents to be modified, which is exactly what needs to happen. Without running that command, the kext file(s) cannot be properly installed.
Second, after you’ve installed WiFi it doesn’t appear to reconnect when you open your netbook from sleep. Now, this only happens to me, and it might just be something I’m doing wrong. I have to go back into System Preferences and select the network I want to connect to each time, even though it’s listed in my Preferred networks. The menu bar item also does not work and just tells me that Airport is not configured.
I also should mention that I upgraded my netbook to 1GB of RAM although I will eventually max it out at 2GBs. I suggest you upgrade to at least 1GB also, especially if you plan on install Mac OS X Leopard.
Besides those few issues, I’m really enjoying my new OS X netbook. I take it everywhere I go and I find a lot nicer to pull out on the bus then my Apple MacBook. So far, the battery seems to last about 3 hours which is fine with me, it last the bus ride to and from work and then some. It’s really fabulous and it’ll definitely hold me over until Apple comes out with their own netbook!
