[[MaLiCiOuS]]

Well here is my guide (via gizmodo, used with permission):

What You'll Need

• Dell Mini 10v. The stock version, at $300, works perfectly. [Note: I'm getting a lot of questions about this, so just to be clear: This has to be a 10v, not a regular Mini 10. Lots of netbooks can be hackintoshed, but the Mini 10 has an incompatible graphics card/chipset. Sorry!]


• BIOS version lower than A06 (A05, A04, A03 all work fine)
Downgrade instructions are available here, though they require a Windows PC for creating a bootable DOS flash drive. There are a lot of scary acronyms here, but don't worry—it's no more than a few minutes of work.


• Retail copy of OS X 10.6 (NOT an OEM copy that comes with a new Mac). An ISO will do fine here too, but discs are just $30, you cheapskate. Upgrades to 10.6.1 should be applied after the fact.


• An 8GB (or larger) USB flash drive, the faster the better. External HDDs will work too.


• A Mac with a working optical drive, for preparing your flash drive


• Netbook BootMaker (a free Mac application)
Preparing Your Flash Drive


The 10v doesn't have an optical drive, and it's a pain in the ass to have to go find one, burn a new disc, and do things the old-fashioned way. Installing from a USB flash drive is much, much easier. So that's the method we'll be running with.

1. Insert your flash drive and OS X Retail install disk into your computer

2. Open Disk Utility (searching in Spotlight is the easiest way to find this)

3. Select your flash drive from the list on the left. Make sure to select the drive itself, not any partitions you may have written to it before.

4. In the right panel, select the "Partition" screen.

5. From the dropdown menu, select "1 Partition," then click "Options" below the partition map.

6. Select "Master Boot Record." This will ensure that your Mini 10v can boot from your flash drive. Select a name for your partition—doesn't really matter what—and apply your changes. Keep in mind this will delete anything you have on your flash drive right now, so back it up if need be.

7. Once this is done, move from the "Partition" screen to the "Restore" screen in Disk Utility

8. For your Restore Source, select (by dragging) the OS X install disk from the left panel. Make sure this is the item called something to the effect of "Mac OS Install DVD," not "Optiarc DVD" or some other hardware title. For the destination, drag your newly-prepared partition over. Click restore.

This will take at least an hour, so go have sandwich or something. Or even better, skip ahead make sure your Mini 10v is ready for the install, as outlined in the next section.


Ok, once that slog is done, it's time to let Netbook BootMaker do its magic. And let me be clear: it is magic. What this utility will do is install a special bootloader on your flash drive, which allows your netbook to begin an OS X install. It also throws in a few driver tweaks, to make sure your 10v, y'know, work.

9. Running BootMaker is easy—just open the app, select your OS X partition on your newly-minted flash drive, and tell it to GO GO GO.

Aaaaand that's it! You're ready to start hackintoshing.
Installing OS X

First, you're going to need to do some light prep on your 10v.

10. Jump into the BIOS, since we're going to need to check on a few things. You can do this by restarting the 10v, and hitting F2 as the Dell logo first shows up.

11. Double-check to see if you have the right BIOS. As long as it's lower than A06, you're fine. If not, refer back to the "What You'll Need" section.

12. With the arrow keys, cycle over to the "Advanced" screen, where you'll see a list of options. USB BIOS Legacy support should be enabled, as should Bluetooth.

13. Now cycle over to the Boot screen. This is where you tell your 10v which drive to start from. During normal use, this will be the hard drive where your OS is installed. Since we're installing an OS today, though, you're going to want to select "USB Storage," and move it to the top by pressing the F6 key.


14. Once you're done, press F10 to save and exit. If you're ready to dive straight into the install, make sure you have your prepped USB drive plugged in and ready to go.

15. Plug your computer in, if it's not already. You don't want your netbook to die halfway though—this will only lead to sadness.

Next time you boot with your flash drive plugged in, you should see this screen. Don't be alarmed by the spinning pinwheel; just leave it for a few minutes. Your computer is thinking.

16. HAHA, BEHOLD! This screen here, it's awfully Apple-y! But you're not done yet. Let the install complete, following the regular prompts as you go. When it asks you where to install OS X, select and clear the entire HDD of your device. This will delete everything, so make sure you have your stuff backed up. Update: To be more specific on the "select and clear":

The first thing you need to do is format your HHD. Bring up Disk Utility in the installer select it at the highest level possible. Go to "Partition" and make it a single Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) partition. Before hitting Apply, go to Options and select GUID Partition Table. Then hit apply.

After about an hour, you're done. Seriously—that's it. Your first boot will take longer than normal, and your desktop may freeze for minutes at a time. Give it some time to figure everything out. Within about 10 minutes, your desktop should be ready to go.
Odds and Ends

By and large, your install should work out of the box. Sleep, shutdown/startup, sound, keyboard shortcuts, battery indicators, and anything else you can think of should be present and at attention, barring one glaring flaw: the trackpad. It's kinda shitty, and makes dragging-and-dropping nearly impossible. Here's what you need to do:

17. Go here, and download the attached trackpad driver.

18. Open Finder on your 10v, and press CMD+Shift+G (on this keyboard, that's Alt+Shift+G.) In the box that comes up, typed "/Extra" and press enter.
This will bring you to a hidden folder. Copy the .kext file you've download into the Mini10vExt folder, making sure to back up the one you're replacing.
19. Run the app in the "Extra" directory called UpdateExtra, which will alert OS X to the new drivers. Restart your computer.
Now you should be able to click and drag—the cursor should jump when your second finger makes contact. You should see, as you could before, a panel in the OS X preferences where you can adjust trackpad settings. Play with them as you like—two finger scrolling is great, and makes the 10v feel more like a genuine Apple netbook.


The only other issue you're likely to run into is the occasional too-tall settings screen. Here's an obscenely clever virtual screen resolution workaround for that.
So There You Go


You've got yourself a fully-functioning, beautifully small Snow Leopard netbook, which'll do 90% of what a 13-inch MacBook can, at 70% the size and about 25% of the cost. Mine's close to perfect: With an extended battery, I'm pushing 7 hours of battery life with Wi-Fi, which makes my MacBook pro look like a LOSER. And tiny extra bit of size over the Mini 9 means the keyboard is just large enough to work on, meaning this thing isn't just a toy—it's a decent investment. This from a guy with banana fingers.


Performance is acceptable, meaning you can run regular apps like iTunes, Firefox—and even Photoshop in a bind. It's not noticeably slow during normal use, though it'll choke on higher-res Flash video (no YouTube HD, but SD works fine). As with any netbook, this pretty much can't be your main machine. But it's a brilliant extra portable machine, for toilet browsing, travel, class notes and the like


Anyway, buckets of thanks to MechDrew (site here) and Bmcclure937. Without their guides, I wouldn't have been able to write this one. And of course, a hat tip to Adam Pash, who was already elbow-deep in Snow Leopard hackintoshing when we were all still too afraid. See his fantastic guide to building the build your own desktop hackintosh here, And I'd be remiss not to mention Meklort, the main developer of the NetbookInstaller suite, which does most of the heavy lifting here

[Ww0wW]

FYI: I have a Mini 10v Hackintosh and I flash my OS to Snow Leopard. The BOIS is A06 and it works AWESOME.

[[MaLiCiOuS]]

Originally Posted by Ww0wW

FYI: I have a Mini 10v Hackintosh and I flash my OS to Snow Leopard. The BOIS is A06 and it works AWESOME.

yes but this guide requires BIOS version A05-A03 BIOS.

[hayden0103]

Outdated, unfortunately. The extra trackpad driver has been integrated into the "Install Dell mini 10v extensions" option in NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 (and probably before the final release as well).

[evanmscott]

so i just hackintoshed my Dell Mini 10v and when the updates were done the sound stopped working. Anyone know how to fix this?
Thanks

[Fierljepper]

@evanmscott: Running the netbook installer netbook-installer - Project Hosting on Google Code and installing the extensions will get your sound back.

[[MaLiCiOuS]]

Originally Posted by hayden0103

Outdated, unfortunately. The extra trackpad driver has been integrated into the "Install Dell mini 10v extensions" option in NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 (and probably before the final release as well).

yes but this does not use NBI, only NetbookBootMaker

[klipsch]

Just installed last night, it couldnt have been easier, even downgrading the BIOS was easy. After I ran a software update I lost sound, are there any suggestions to get it working ?

[virusdoc]

Originally Posted by [MaLiCiOuS]

yes but this guide requires BIOS version A05-A03 BIOS.

This guide does not require A05-A03. The most recent version of NetBookMaker (0.8.3 alpha), runs and installs fine on A06. Do not downgrade your BIOS to do this install.

And NetBookMaker places NetBookInstaller in the Applications folder of your Hackintosh for you. Just run it at your first boot and it will install the most up to date drivers for all your 10v components. There is no need to download and manually install trackpad drivers.

-virusdoc

[Montala]

This is not my usual 'field', but I thought I read on here somewhere that there is a later version of NetBookMaker now available, which (naturally!) works fine with A06?

Edit: Or am I getting confused with Netbook Installer here?... I said I was a bit 'new' to this?