Because geek is cool and clever

I heart my new Hackintosh March 23, 2009

My luvverly Dell Mini 9 running OS X. Click pic for more images in the gallery

I’m snatching a quick ten minutes during a busy weekend to start writing this week’s column.

The sunny weather and Mother’s Day have collaborated to ensure I’m getting less desk time than I could normally rely on but thanks to my latest acquisition that doesn’t mean I have to be away from a computer.

I’ve been a serious laptop user for over a decade now. iMac aside, all my computers are portable, although I admit to buying laptops primarily for their smaller footprint. My endless quest to maintain a clutter free home office means I have neither the floor or desk space for desktop machines. My work laptop goes to and from the office and my bulky Alienware gaming laptop is just about luggable to friends’ houses but I’ve never had a truly portable machine that I could be comfortable carrying around with me.

Actually, that’s not strictly true as I bought into the mini ‘netbook’ trend with the first model Asus EeePC which made headline news for being the smallest, cheapest computer on the market, but found its build quality and stripped down operating system made it feel like something manfactured by Fisher-Price toys. The tiny keyboard necessitated an index finger ‘pecking’ style of typing that I found too slow and uncomfortable so it’s now on permanent loan with my sister-in-law and her far more dainty digits.

For months I’ve been coveting the Dell Mini 9, a dinky little netbook with a larger keyboard than the EeePC. A few weeks ago two things happened simultaneously that were to seal its fate and ensure I would end up owning one. Firstly I actually tried one out in PC World and secondly I read an article about how to turn one into a ‘Hackintosh’ by installing Apple’s Mac OS X on it.

Adopting my general principal of using PC World to look at stuff and then buying it 25% cheaper online, I ordered a Mini 9 from Dell which turned up at the weekend. A couple of hours later it was sporting a fully fledged Mac OS X in all its glory.

There are a number of online guides about how to install OS X on a Dell Mini 9. Be advised that the Mini 9 is apparently particularly straightforward for this process and that other laptops and netbooks are different and require a difference procedure (even the Dell Mini 10 and 12). I followed the guide I found at Gizmodo which was easy to follow, although I did have to go through every stage as the external DVD drive I borrowed for the purpose wouldn’t boot OS X and so I had to go the whole way and make a bootable installation on a USB Flash drive. This wasn’t tricky (if you follow the guide) but you do need a) a decent size flash drive (mine is 8GB which is the minimum) and b) plenty of patience because it takes more than an hour just for the one copying stage.

Another great source for all things Dell Mini (including the 9) – http://mydellmini.com/.

I’ve taken a few more snaps of the Mini 9 which you can see on my gallery.

I absolutely love this thing and at barely 7 x 9 inches, I can take it with me wherever I go. Apple’s apparent reluctance to bring out an affordable mini netbook running OS X has cost them dear.