[funnysac]

ok i ordered the Vostro A90 for $200 on sale at Dell Small Business.
specs: 1.6ghz processor. 8GB ssd. 1GB Ram. Ubuntu Linux installed

Multiple questions:
1. Snow Leopard vs. Leopard?
Why would i use Snow leopard instead? Faster.. shinier... stabler?

2. Do i need to purchase 2GB RAM to replace? is it really that neccessary and how does it help the dell mini 9?

3. Can i even put OS X on there with my specs? And there are sooo many ways to do it, what is the easiest and most effective way? this would be my first and probably not the last hackintosh upon success.

4. What would make this (hardware, technique) process and functionality as smooth as possible?

thanks

[BKR2879]

1. Snow Leopard is the newest, but Leopard runs just fine as well and probably has slightly better support at the moment.

2. You don't "need" 2GB of ram, but its a cheap upgrade and will help system performance a bit.

3. The 8GB SSD will take an OSX install but you'll likely need to strip things down a bit, and you won't have much room left for much else.

4. I would go here for the step by steps of getting it working.

Guides | OS X | mechdrew

[funnysac]

thanks.

i think im going to have to use snow leopard because i cant find a retail leopard disc anywhere. If you have any suggestions that would be good...

and im pretty sure i cant use that method on Mechdrew's site because it says it "may not work with snow leopard" but i could just be noobin it pretty hardcore. ?

[jxanthony]

Originally Posted by funnysac

i think im going to have to use snow leopard because i cant find a retail leopard disc anywhere. If you have any suggestions that would be good...

If you're still deciding which OS to install, I'd recommend SL only because I believe it is a better constructed OS than Leopard. But, I am waiting for NBI to be as perfect as possible before moving to SL.

If you're still up in the air, you can always check ebay for a copy of leopard!

[funnysac]

Originally Posted by jxanthony

If you're still deciding which OS to install, I'd recommend SL only because I believe it is a better constructed OS than Leopard. But, I am waiting for NBI to be as perfect as possible before moving to SL.

If you're still up in the air, you can always check ebay for a copy of leopard!

Yah im too anxious to wait for ebay shipping... ive already waited for my delayed a90 to come in for 14 days.

and just a question... when i copied to sl disk image or whatever to an external drive, the sl disc is good as new and can be used on my macbook?

---------- Post added at 09:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 PM ----------

Originally Posted by sukidesu

I lucked out an order one as well. I just installed snow leopard and it seems to work fine.

I would recommend having several guides ready when you start. I was hoping for an easy install, but 5 hours later, I finally got it installed.

I wasn't able to strip down the install setup enough to install, so I installed to a USB attached drive. Once that was done, I just did a restore from the USB to the mini SSD.

Then run "Netbookinstaller" and select the mini SSD. Don't forget to turn off legacy support on your next reboot.

I'm able to tether to my iPhone using bluetooth. But, my sounds not working right now. I guess I'll be busy this weekend.

Good Luck.

ok i installed the sl to a usb hdd. Now what do i do? it says operating system cannot be found. what the heck.

and then what should i remove to condense the size?
i guess unused apps, ??
i really appreciate it

[BKR2879]

The method on Mechdrew's site works fine for SL.

Also see here..... http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/gene...-official.html

You don't want to "install" to the device you plan to install OSX from onto the A90, you want to do a "Restore" from the disk utilities to that device.

In my case I did a SL restore to a USB stick, then ran the NetbookInstaller package to let it modify that USB stick (both steps done on a Mac), then booted it on the A90 and installed SL.

The 8GB part is where you're going to need to do more work and makes it more of a hassle. I dropped a 64GB RunCore in mine because I needed the space and money wasn't a problem at the time.

There's a guide here on how to do a selective install, not sure if it's still relevant though. You'll likely have to jury rig something together with a mish-mash of both methods.

http://www.mydellmini.com/forum/faqs...ate-drive.html

[sukidesu]

ok i installed the sl to a usb hdd. Now what do i do? it says operating system cannot be found. what the heck.

and then what should i remove to condense the size?
i guess unused apps, ??
i really appreciate it[/QUOTE]

When I tried to follow the mechdrew guide, I ran into the problem that I just couldn't shrink the install small enough. I realized that not only was the mini SSD listed, but my 8 gb SL USB was an install option as well. So, I plugged in another USB hard and rebooted. Now, it gave me the option of minin SSD, 8 gb SL USB and my external 80 gb hard drive.

I choose the 80 gb USB to install to, then when it was working, I removed all the printer and language files to free up some space. I also ran xslimmer to shrink it a little more. When I was done, I just used disk utilty to do a restore from my 80 gb USB to the mini SSD. (Just make sure to make it a guild format)

Granted, there probably is an easier way. But after several hours of trying several different methods, this worked. Also, I'm still new to this.

An added benefit right now is that I have SL installed on an external hard drive. This has helped me already so far. Because, as I tried to fix the sound, I screwed it up and it would not boot. Luckily, I just booted off the external then restored the image again.

[sukidesu]

I lucked out an order one as well. I just installed snow leopard and it seems to work fine.

I would recommend having several guides ready when you start. I was hoping for an easy install, but 5 hours later, I finally got it installed.

I wasn't able to strip down the install setup enough to install, so I installed to a USB attached drive. Once that was done, I just did a restore from the USB to the mini SSD.

Then run "Netbookinstaller" and select the mini SSD. Don't forget to turn off legacy support on your next reboot.

I'm able to tether to my iPhone using bluetooth. But, my sounds not working right now. I guess I'll be busy this weekend.

Good Luck.

[sukidesu]

If you have SL installed on a USB hard drive, make sure to run xslimmer and monolingual , as well as remove all printers that you don't need before you transfer the image. I have 823mb free on a 8 gb SSD.

I had the same problem with the netinstaller. If it doesn't allow you to select a drive, don,t use that one. I'm using 8.2. The only issue I have is no sound and the boot process is longer than I would like. One of my first try's to load, I didn't have to press anything, it just automatically came up with the apple. Now, I have to wait 10 seconds or press any key, then select my hard drive. Then, for some reason I have to press enter or it just sits there. If I come up with a better solution this weekend for the Vostro, I'll post it. After several all nighters for me my brain is mush.

A minor odd thing I've found is that when I boot off of my USB hard drive, the memory states 2gb 800 MHz, but off the 8 gb SSD it says 533 MHtz.

[funnysac]

Originally Posted by sukidesu

If you have SL installed on a USB hard drive, make sure to run xslimmer and monolingual , as well as remove all printers that you don't need before you transfer the image. I have 823mb free on a 8 gb SSD.

I had the same problem with the netinstaller. If it doesn't allow you to select a drive, don,t use that one. I'm using 8.2. The only issue I have is no sound and the boot process is longer than I would like. One of my first try's to load, I didn't have to press anything, it just automatically came up with the apple. Now, I have to wait 10 seconds or press any key, then select my hard drive. Then, for some reason I have to press enter or it just sits there. If I come up with a better solution this weekend for the Vostro, I'll post it. After several all nighters for me my brain is mush.

A minor odd thing I've found is that when I boot off of my USB hard drive, the memory states 2gb 800 MHz, but off the 8 gb SSD it says 533 MHtz.

to everyone:

Should i just start over?
have two hd connected to my vostro and install from one to the other.
use monolingual to shrink some stuff...
run netbook installer (version ?) from the external HD, then restore to internal ssd; OR, restore to internal ssd (after shrinkage.. haha) then run netbook installer? and pray to God it works?

if it could only fit on my 8gb ssd.. sad face