[pacergh]

I bought my Dell Mini for the express purpose of hacking OS X onto it. These were the Halcyon days of OS X.5 and direct kernel support for the Atom.

My current install is 10.5.5 or so, and it works pretty well. All the drivers work. I have sound, mic, webcam, SD Card, etc.

But these were also the days before the iPad -- and now my iPad fulfills the need I had for the Mini 9 (Papers, a research organization program for Mac OS X, has an iPad port).

So in order to boost the speed and still make use of the Mini as a browser/chat/light programming box, I thought I'd try Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Plus I plan to give it to my 16-month old daughter at some point with some Edubuntu stuff installed.

The question is, though, will UNR increase my general speed/battery life/etc? Or should I maybe stick with OS X? If OS X, should I stick with my working install, or should I upgrade to 10.6? I read 10.6 has some compatibility issues -- how serious are these?

Thoughts, anyone? (I mean, I could always get an Air at some point I suppose if I really want a tiny Mac.)

[reflex]

I dunno much about hackintoshes, but I think hackintosh Mini 9 netbooks originally didn't reduce the CPU speed when idle, which wasted some power. I dunno if it's still true. So, Ubuntu could offer improved battery life, but don't expect miracles.

As for general speed, I don't think you'll see much improvement, if any. I think the main trick to speed up any netbook running whatever OS is lightweight software and Flash/script/ad blocking on webpages. The CPU is weak, so it's important to minimize it's load.

[UNCNDL1]

If your mini 9 is working fine I'd leave well enough alone- unless you want to try Snow Leopard or Ubuntu- Many Linux programs work very well and can even run in RAM- if you want to dabble I suggest trying Joli OS which can load via usb or disc you can play without loading it on the HD. Joli is much like a blend of mac & windows- enjoy

[lswartz]

Your daughter will need a different computer by the time she will be using computers/cell phones etc. Use what ever OS you are comfortable with. If you want to experiment with Ubuntu, you don't have to install it to test it out.

[kevinmalmo]

this is what we like about Linux...
I also like the idea of having linux as an option.

[shihuangdi]

Ubuntu is faster. But Mac is fantastic. I would upgrade to Snow Leopard, it's another world!

But that's a personal decision. I personaly would try to run Ubuntu on an USB during a week and then decide wich is better for you.