DVDPlayer loves Snow Leopard

I'm not sure if it's just that the DVD Player version that comes default with Snow Leopard 10.6 is a newer version than the one in Leopard 10.5 but the good news is that it's less finicky than before.
Remember this?

Before I'd have to edit the DVDplayback file to use it to play DVD's. Also it won't start without plugging the external DVD drive itself into one of the USB's.
But now, in Snow Leopard, that trouble is now a thing of the (Leopard) past. DVDPlayer loads without any complaints at all; even without an external DVD drive plugged in.

Vanilla Crazy

Like good ol' (or should we say, stubborn?) Alice, I've gone down the rabbit hole to EFI boot.

What is EFI boot anyhow? Not that I'm assuming those who're reading this post don't have a inkling but it's the question I'd asked myself when I stumbled on the thread over at msiwind.net forums so I'm including it here as a reminder to my own self, actually just a couple of reasons why I'm going EFI:

Cat in the Bag: Install Snow Leopard on the HP Mini

This installation method uses NetbookBootMaker. With Chameleon 2.0-RC2 already available, you might be asking why NetbookBootMaker? True, NetbookBootMaker is primarily made for the Dell Mini hackintosh but it works fine in my setup and offers noob-friendly tools as well such as ExtraUpdate - more on that later.

Update: Please see Snow Leopard Guide

This installation method uses NetbookBootMaker. With Chameleon 2.0-RC2 already available, you might be asking why NetbookBootMaker? True, NetbookBootMaker is primarily made for the Dell Mini hackintosh but it works fine in my setup and offers noob-friendly tools as well such as ExtraUpdate - more on that later.

So, let's get this rollin'! :D

Mini Love

I love the HP Mini 1000.

But my Mini's trackpad's died out on me already. At first I thought it was just some issue with Snow Leopard, specifically the point update releasae (10.6.1). It's an erratic problem, sometimes the trackpad works as expected and sometimes not. (I'd already tried with bootable Windoze on USB, and it's the same result)

I'm still waiting for my keyboard replacement, and this trackpad issue came along as another thing to worry about on the side. In a heartbeat I would've gotten a new Mini, and it would be the same Mini 1000 because of its compatibility with Mac OS X.

Nothing's Perfect

In a perfect world, I would be able to restore the Snow Leopard Retail DVD onto an external HDD or USB, apply NetbookBootMaker on it and use it to install Snow Leopard directly onto the HP Mini 1000; my MacBook Mini. It wouldn't stall at "Remaining time : 7 minutes" and it wouldn't give me this bugger of a line when I check the Install Log:

"OSInstaller [154] : /postinstall : cp : /Volumes/ramdisk/dsdt/latest_dsdl.dsl : No such file or directory"

In a perfect world, I wouldn't have to use my hackintosh MSI Wind on which I had to run the installer to get a "prototype" bootable Snow Leopard running on another partition in my external HDD. This prototype then I would boot the HP Mini with and once inside Snow Leo prototype installation, I would run OSInstall.mpkg to install to the HP Mini's internal hard drive. In a perfect world, my Snow Leopardized MacBook Mini would sleep and resume like a decent hackintosh.

In a perfect world, internal hard drives in Snow Leopard wouldn't display as removable drives as represented by the yellow drive icon.

In a perfect world, Quartz Extreme would be enabled and the internal mic would work with the new VoodooHDA kext and PrefPane; I won't have to drill in SysPref > Sound > Ouput > PCM and so on and so forth just to be able to really adjust the volume.

In a perfect world, I would've had the sense to keep my girly-frou-frou and geeky-hackintosher personas separate so I wouldn't have thought of blow drying my hair in attempts to imitate my current favorite Taiwanese idol drama lead actress while I wait for the point update to finish installing on MacBook Mini. Now I'm waiting for my replacement keyboard cause the O.C. in me cannot stand wilted keycaps though it's still a perfectly functional keyboard.

But in this imperfect world, MacBook Mini is, indeed running on Snow Leopard. It updated to 10.6.1 smoothly - without the usual pains of normal point updates before since I'm running EFI boot 132 and my kexts in the /Extra folder remain intact and are happily loaded each and every time I boot up my system.

The fan is working and so are the bluetooth, WiFi, Marvell Yukon 2 ethernet supported as native. The webcam, though still far from giving a stellar experience, works (albeit sluggishly and with graininess that's anything but subtle) when PhotoBooth is launched. Sliding switch for toggling BT and WiFi on or off is working like it should and I could control brightness with fn+f3/f4 sans aucun problème !

Snow Leopard is zippier indeed - not by a significant much over 10.5 Leopard but it is snappier feeling all in all. And I'm adoring the new Finder and Quick Time X. MacBook Mini even shuts down and restarts dandy with OpenHaltRestart - I had an issue previously with Leopard wherein I had to make sure I switch the BT/WiFi back on so the light turns blue before I restart, else the HP Mini would just sit there like a block of cheese, frozen in perpetuity until I force it to power off.

No more blank page in System Profiler > Hardware as every little about the HP Mini is now known by Mac OS X; it even thinks it's a MacBook Air! Though I'm quite stumped why its bios version is listed as "f.13f" when I remember I just updated my bios last month to F.14F. Hmmm. . .

The Apple logo and the spinning wheel (yes, that's right - the even the spinning wheel) in the boot splash screen are no longer squashed but are finally able to grace Mac OS X boot up with equally gorgeous proportions. So what am I ranting about? This makes me a persona non grata I guess ;)

LeMaurien19

4shared.com Got Hacked -

$shared is up and running again.

Links to downloads are now dead - until 4shared.com is able, if it's gonna be able, to sort this problem out.

My apologies.

Obsessed

I got Snow Leopard via dearest torrent just this last weekend; I devoted the next two days trying to cram in this latest cat into my MacBook Mini. This is as close as I could possibly get:

1) Downloaded this package thanks to the guys at msiwind.net

2) Used my hackintoshed MSI Wind: Disk utility > Partition external HDD as GUID > Restore Snow Leo Retail image to GUID partition

3) Install Netbookmaker on it.

4) Rebooted the MSI Wind, hit F11 and chose restore Snow Leo partition to boot from: installed Snow Leo to another partition on the same external HDD (I split it into 2 GUID paritions).

5) Once installation was done, I rebooted the wind, ran the Snow Leo installer (the restored partition, not the installed one) and went to Utilities > Reset password to create a password for the root user. I chose of course the partition on which I'd installed Snow Leo (not the one where I restored the installer DVD on)

6) I unplugged the external HDD from the MSI Wind to connect it to the HP Mini, started the Mini and pressed F9 during startup to boot from the partition where I'd installed Snow Leo.

It boots alright into Snow Leo!!! :D

New HP Mini's Coming Soon?

According to articles at Liliputing and MyHPMini, there might be new HP Mini models in the makings...the HP Mini 210 and 311, as well as Compaq 210 and 311. Its not for sure if there will be new models, but chances are very good. Little information is actually know right now and nothing will be official until it comes from HP themselves... The real question is: what will the "insides" be like and how will that affect installing Mac OS X? Will it be easier to install? Will it even install? on upcoming models list"

At Wits' End

No. I cannot give up no matter how easier it would make my life by just letting it all go. Poof. Vamoosed. No more sleepless nights. But my inner geek is screaming protests; she wants Snow Leopard. See Snow Leopard. Breathe Snow Leopard. I tried working with this how-to with my MacBook Wind (MSI Wind on Mac OS X :D) first:

Didn't work. I would get stuck at a nondescript line:

One MacBook Mini To Rule Them All?

Setting Frodo aside, here's an interesting find from liliputing.com

Don't we just love the ingenuity, or rather flare for imitation that our fellow asians, the Chinese, have?

If Apple is slow to catch up on the netbook craze and has left us craving for a MacBook Mini to the point of resorting to hacking all flavors of existing iterations of this portable computing platform on the market just to get some Mac OS X lovin'; then China proves to be the angel of mercy that brings into fruition something that's only heard of from "extreme mods" sections in our respective forums.

In summary these guys have put the all too familiar by now 1.6 GHz Atom N270, 1 GB RAM, IntelGMA950 in a drool-worthy package.

I'm loving the island keyboard though the trackpad may be a lot less stellar than on a real MacBook.

Personally, I doubt it's real aluminum. More like spray painted plastic :D See the rest of the pics at Flickr.com

LeMaurien19