Saturday 16 July 2011

EeePC 1005HA + Snow Leopard 10.6.3 = MacEee

Why did I install OS X Snow Leopard on my trusty 1005HA?

Good question.

The answer is (naturally) because I could. It certainly wasn't because I had a need for it, Ubuntu does everything I need, but I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I've never used Apple's OS before and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a nose round.

How did I do it?

First things first (as opposed to first things last):
You will need an external CD/DVD drive.
You will also need a copy of iATKOS_S3_version2.iso. Google it.
And, finally,the files IO82011.Family.kext.zip and KextHelperb7.zip. These two are available in plenty of places, but I have them on my SkyDrive for convenience.



Lets go!

1. First, get the two .zip files and put them on a flash drive or SDHC card.

2. Download the .iso file. Now, I already own a retail version of OSX Snow Leopard but it's a nightmare to get working. The iAtkos version includes the drivers needed for this to work.

3. Burn the .iso to a DVD. I recommend burning it at a slow speed as burning at faster speeds often causes issues.

4. If you haven't already done so, back up any files you may require later.

5. Shut down the EeePC and attach the external CD/DVD drive. Turn on the CD/DVD drive and insert the DVD that you burned. Now boot the EeePC and hit the F2 when you see the grey Asus splash screen to go into the BIOS.

6. Once in the BIOS, go along to the 'Advanced' tab and then down to 'IDE Configuration'.

7. Your 'ATA/IDE Configuration' needs to be set to 'Enhanced' and underneath that, 'Configure SATA' should be set to 'AHCI'.

8. Once done, hit Esc, go along to the 'Exit' tab and 'Exit & Save changes'.

9. When the grey Asus splash screen appears tap the ESC key. the boot menu will appear. Choose your CD/DVD drive.

10. You should see the Apple logo appear shortly. Give it some time to do it's stuff.



11. When the desktop welcome screen appears, click next. At the top of the screen is a menu. Go to Utilities and select click on Disk utilities.









12. Choose your drive on the left hand side (it will probably be called 'untitled'). Now hit the erase button again and choose 'Mac OS Extended Journaled' as the format and hit erase. Wait for it to finish, it should only take 30 seconds at the most. When it's done, close the window.













13. Click continue until you reach the screen where you are asked to select the disk to install to. Select the disk.
NOW, STOP! DO NOT HIT THE INSTALL BUTTON!
You need to click the customize button before we go any further.









14. Tick the options below and do not untick anything that is already ticked. So, to reiterate, you should only add ticks, not remove any. Got that?

BOOT
ASEREBLN ASEREBLN

BOOT OPTIONS
32BITS 32bit
GRAPHICS ENABLERS Enablers GRAPHICS
ETHERNET ETHERNET BUILTIN

PATCHES
CREATE EXTRA
FAKESMC
DISABLER DISABLED
RTC

KERNELS
KERNEL ATOM
EVO REBOOT
SLEEP ENABLER
UUID
SATA-IDE DRIVERS
SATA AHCI

SOUND
VOODOHDA

PS2
APPLEPS2

POWER MANAGER
VOODO POWER

LAPTOP HARD
BATTERY
CARD READER
THERMAL ACPI

VGA
INTEL
EFI STRING
GMA950 27AE

WIFI
RALINK 2860 32BIT

WIRED ETHERNET NETWORK
ATLANSIC L1E



15. Once you are done, go back and check your ticking. Once you are sure you got it right click 'OK'. Now you can hit the 'Install' button. Installation seems to take forever. Move the cursor occassionally to stop the computer from dozing off.





16. Once it's finished it will reboot.



17. Let the computer boot into it's new OS. This will take forever, but it's only this boot that will take this long.

18. You'll know it's getting there when you hear a cover of 'Staying Alive' from Saturday Night Fever. Be patient, the desktop will appear shortly. You will now be asked for your keyboard setup, personal details and a password.



19. Now before you start messing with stuff, insert the flash drive or SDHC card with the .zip files on it. The drive will appear on the desktop. Drag the .zip files onto the desktop.

20. Double click the files to unzip them. Double click on the Kext Helper and then drag the kext file into the Kext Helper window. Enter your password and click 'Easy Install'.

21. Once finished, reboot. If you get a message saying Kext Helper isn't responding, force it to quit. It will take an age for reboot to happen. It will look as if it's just hung, but leave it alone. It WILL reboot eventually. So just wait.

22. Upon reboot, wireless should now be working. If not, try the Kext Helper again and reboot. This took me several attempts on one install but it usually works first time.

And that's it!



Now, the dock at the bottom can be a little intrusive on the EeePC's small screen, so click on the Apple logo (top left) > Dock, and click on Turn Hiding On. You could also move the dock to the left side if you feel that way.
You may have noticed that the touchpad tap-to-click doesn't work and there's no scrolling either. I did attempt to fix this by using a Kext I found somewhere on the net, but it royally screwed up the desktop and I had to reinstall.
The only Fn buttons that seem to work are the brightness buttons.
You may also notice that there are updates available. Do not install the Mac OSX Update Combined. I did, which required another reinstallation. The other updates were fine, though.
The Photo Booth app, while being enormous fun, is a little too big for the screen and I'm yet to find a way dealing with that.
What, no office app? Get Libre Office for that. I got Gimp and Chrome, too.

Overall, it's stable, is fairly nippy on the netbook and it looks nice.

What's not to like about it? Plenty. But I'm not going into that as it's largely subjective.

But popular as Apple stuff is, I'm not planning to switch to it. I just don't like it enough. It's too bloody nice.
After all, I'm the bloke who uses Linux, owns an unpopular phone, is planning to switch to another unpopular phone and encodes all his music in the FLAC format.

So, in conclusion: Boring.

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