My MacBook Wind

So here I am with this latest post, chronicling my experience with installing OS X Leopard on two different machines, the Asus 1000H and the MSI Wind. Both run OS X Leopard great but based on my experience, the MSI Wind, though lacking in "aesthetics" points (depending on each's own opinion) gives the more pleasant OS X experience in that I'd had significantly more trouble installing the OS in the Asus 1000H.

Just see my previous post. 

True, the webcam on the Asus 1000H may be less laggy than the one on the MSI Wind, provided that it isn't one of those nasty Bison v .03's which aren't compatible at all, but the over all user experience is albeit better on the Wind. 

As far as I'm concerned it's only the internal mic that's still totally not working on the Wind. It's the same case as in the Asus 1000H, but with the Wind, you get the volume, brightness, and all the other fn + Fx controls working after doing an install from the msiwindosx86 DVD. With the Asus, you gotta do some further hacking and it ain't easy.

I didn't even bother to get the controls working on my roomie's 1000H because that would mean another significant dent in my time schedule. True, as it is ,my hackintosh skills are hardly acceptable so I may just not have the ability to do that but it's undeniable that the said task does require working on.

Another thing is sound. Okay, what about audieee? Sure that did wonders and my roomie can now even use her iPod's earphones with her Eeepple 1000H (that's what she's decided to call her hackintosh) and I couldn't use it without even installing CHUD first and then running some scripts in Terminal etc...

But the main point of the fact is that without audieee, the 1000H's internal speakers wouldn't work at all. And audieee at that wouldn't have perfomred the big miracle it did without having to install the Developer Tools on the 1000H first. 

Perhaps all this is becoming a pain in the eyes to read and a lot more painful to the brain to process for it to make any sense at all so here's a better summary:

After installation from msiwindosx86 DVD :

MSI Wind

*No preps needed. Boot from DVD and install

What works right away:
1) Sound through internal speakers
2) Correct resolution 1028 x 600
3) Trackpad
4) Keyboard
5) Sleep (close lid and system automatically goes to sleep, press power button to wake-up)
6) Control keys (brightness, volume, etc.)
7) Bluetooth (both built-in or dongle/usb type)

What works but requires tweaking (fixes enclosed in parentheses):
1) Webcam (Sonix, update Quick Time to 7.5 or latest)
2) WiFi (download and install corresponding WLAN Utility)
3) Audio via headphone jack (follow guide here) (it's actually for the Lenovo S10 but it's the same procedure)

Asus 1000H 

1) Pre-installation requirement : Do not install patched kernel
2) Bypass setup by doing this trick:
after installation, during boot up, hit any key to stall default booting into OS X, at the prompt:

-s
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
touch /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

of course, you enter these lines one by one. Get a better idea of what to do with a guide with pics here

What works right away:
1) Correct resolution 1028 x 600
2) Trackpad
3) Keyboard
4) *Sleep (not verified)
5) Webcam
6) bluetooth

What works but requires tweaking (fixes enclosed in parentheses):
1) Webcam (Sonix, update Quick Time to 7.5 or latest)
2) WiFi (download and install WLAN utility)
3) Audio via headphone jack (follow guide here)
4) Controls (brightness, volume, etc.  might work by researching here) * not confirmed

As I was running a mere hackintosh, Steve Job's "it just works" moniker does not hold 100% true for my OS X experience. I've had to search into nooks and crannies of forums all over the net and hack away for hours at the least up to days when things are just a jumble of spaghetti mess.

One thing thing that doesn't work out of the box even installing with the slip streamed custom installer that is msiwindosx86, are the webcam, WiFi, and mic.

But thanks to persistent people over at the msiwind.net forums, RealTek released a driver for the WiFi module in the MSI Wind.

I downloaded it from one of the links posted on the forums File sharing accounts would expire now and then so I'm not providing a link to download it. I suggest you hit the forums at msiwind.net and you'd find someone renewing the download links.

I was saved from having to buy a replacement compatible WiFi module and consequently from voiding my warranty by opening up my wind. And though I had to use the RealTek WLAN utility that was pesky enough to auto launch each and every login, I was a  happy camper.



The same happened more or less with my webcam:  it spit out only green garbage in Photo Booth. So, as usual, I hit the forums again, and was told to update my version Quick Time to the latest. I was skeptical since my mindset was on weird "take off the battery for a couple of minutes or so then put it back" etc, but I gave it a try and downloaded the latest Quick Time for mac from the apple.com and low and behold, I the next time I fired up Photo Booth, I saw my face plastered on the screen.

I was fortunate enough to have the Sonix webcam which turned out to be functional in OS X. Others with the Bison v .3 weren't as lucky.