Recently I have been caught up in the netbook craze, and have been contemplating the purchase of one.  The only thing that has stopped me is that I am an Apple user and don’t want to take a step back and start using Windows.  Linux is more of a viable option, but I would like consistancy across my computing platform between my Desktop (MacPro), notebook (MacBookPro) and now a netbook.

Unfortunately, Apple does not make a netbook.  The closest thing is the Macbook Air, an overpriced engineering marvel.

This post at Gizmodo caught my attention, so I decided it was time to make my Apple Netbook.  BestBuy currently is selling the Dell Mini9 8GB model for $299 while they make clearence for the Mini10.

Gizmodo’s post states that it is a challenge to install Leopard on the 8GB model…while it took a couple of tries for me, I found an easy way to pull this off.  Here is the way that I was able to get this to work on the 8GB Model

What you need to do this:

• 8GB USB Stick
• Computer running OSX
• Computer running Windows
• 1 hour of free time

1. First download the streamlined OSX install image from here
2. Open up Disk Utility and partition your USB drive (8GB or larger) into two partitions: one 200MB FAT32 (MS-DOS) partition named “TYPE11″ and one with the remainder of the free space formated as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) called OSXDVD.
3. Move to a Windows PC (I know, I know), plug in your USB stick and download Syslinux-this is a utility that will make the FAT32 partition of your USB stick bootable. With the Windows Command Prompt, cd over to the “win32″ subdirectory of the Syslinux directory you downloaded and type the following, where “F:” is the drive letter for the TYPE11 partition on your USB stick:
   

   syslinux -ma F:

   You won’t get any confirmation, but if you receive no error messages, you’re good: This copies a single file named ldlinux.sys (invisible in Windows) to the USB drive to make it bootable. Pop it out and go back to your Mac if that’s what you’re using.

4. Now, unzip the Type11 ISO (instead of burning it to a disk) and copy the whole directory structure to the TYPE11 partition. Do NOT overwrite the “ldlinux.sys” when it asks—you want to keep the one you copied over with Syslinux.
5. To fill up the other partition, mount the streamlined OS X install DVD image that you just downloaded and, in Disk Utility, select it and choose “New Image.” Save it to the OSXDVD partition of your USB drive as “live.dmg” with “compressed” as the type and encryption set to “none.” This’ll take about a 20 mins to rip the DVD to an image, which should weigh in at around 3.4GB give or take.
6. After that’s done, go to Terminal and copy your mach kernel file to the OSXDVD partition by typing this:
   

   sudo cp /mach_kernel /Volumes/OSXDVD

7. And finally, download this zip file, uncompress it and copy the System and Library folders inside to your OSXDVD partition. This is the last bit of magic needed to make your Mini 9 think it’s working with an actual OS X install DVD.
8. On your Mini 9, restart it and enter the BIOS setup by pressing “2″—and make sure legacy support for USB devices is enabled. Now, reboot and select the boot options list by tapping 0 at startup and choose USB Storage. Select the OSXDVD partition to boot from and press Enter. This should load up the familiar Apple and the OS X installer window

Install OS X

While you’re installing and doing initial configuration of OS X, everything will be all warped to 800×600 rather than your Mini’s native 1024×600 res. Don’t worry, this will be fixed soon enough.

9. The first thing you need to do is format your SSD. 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.

10. Now, go back to the Installer, and install OS X to the SSD you just partitioned. You will definitely want to choose to customize your install to save SSD space—I would ditch all the printer drivers and language packs you don’t need to save space. If you install with the default options though, don’t worry—all can be removed later. The install will take about an hour, so go fix yourself a drink. You may come back to an Install Error message at the very end (I didn’t), but if you do, don’t worry. It’s normal.

11. Once OS X is installed, it’s still not ready for use right off the drive. On your first reboot, make sure you boot back into the Type11 bootloader on your CD or flash drive, as your new OS X partition is still not bootable without it.

12. So now you boot back into the Type11 CD and choose option 1 (“Install Retail OS X 10.5″) again, even though you’re not installing. This takes you back to the boot prompt. This time, hit Escape, and type the code “80″ for your SSD (as opposed to “9f” for the external DVD). Press enter, and then back at the “boot:” prompt, type “-f” with no quotes before hitting enter again to boot. This will load all of OS X’s kernel extensions (.kexts) to make sure wi-fi and everything works. OS X should boot, and you’ll go through the typical OS X setup process. Notice the webcam and—hopefully—networking are already working!

13. To get the drivers and everything working properly I installed this file, this reinstalled all the proper drivers for the mini9.

14.  The audio would not work for me because the mini9 does not know how to switch from internal speakers to audio-out jack.  I had to install this program.

15. Upgrading to 10.5.6- this was a challenge as it needs 1.6 GB of free space.  I ran Monolingual to clear up 700mb of space.  I also uninstalled most of the unneeded utilities, games and applications.  One thing that helped was uninstalling iTunes & Quicktime (Don’t worry, they can be reinstalled)

16. Repeat step 13 to reinstall drivers.

The one thing that does not work for me is Sleep.  When the lid closes, it turns off the display.  This can be fixed by intalling a larger RunCore SSD.