Robot Monkey Pants

[Updated with info on the SDHC card.]

[Updated again with Sound.]

[Updated again with Sound.]

My first MacBook Nano attempt went well, but it was a rush job. I didn’t even order the right hardware to do the job right.

Then it broke. It stopped charging the battery. That was a hardware fault, and after I restored the Ubuntu install, I sent it in to Dell and they fixed it. But, I also ordered another one so I could do it right. Thus I now present the Right Way to do a MacBook Nano with Dell Mini 9 without spending too much money, and getting a nice solid-state Mac.

First up, order the right model. The hackers have managed to get sleep working on the SSDs that Dell installs, so you don’t need to replace the stock SSD if you order the 32GB one. But if you want as big an SSD as you can, you won’t be getting it from Dell. So I ordered the bottom-of-the-line unit with Bluetooth and Camera added. They had a sale at Dell, so the base machine (4GB SSD, 512MB RAM) was $299, plus my addition of Bluetooth ($20), and camera ($25), and I got it for $344 before tax. Currently, it’ll run you $394.

I then got a 64GB SSD (available here for $220), and a 2GB DIMM (here for $22). All said and done, we’re up to less than $620 for something smaller than a MacBook Air with the same amount of RAM and SSD (as originally sold), which would cost you a lot more. Now, granted, you get a much nicer keyboard, screen, and CPU for that price. However, nobody I know with a MacBook Air is using it as their only machine. In fact, many of the people I know with them are using them as a secondary laptop. And, for a secondary lightweight laptop, this seems like a pretty sweet bargain. On top of that, I have 3 USB ports, an ethernet port, and user replaceable battery, RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi.

You’ll need a USB DVD drive (which I cobbled together with an old disk enclosure and an IDE DVD drive), a Leopard 10.5 retail DVD (which I have), and the right boot disk, as outlined here.

Here’s a pic of the new baby next to the old one. The old one is a 16GB SSD with 1GB of RAM. It’ll get Ubuntu put back on it, and will inherit the 32GB SDHC card I have that won’t work on the Mac version (more below).

From left to right: Original Dell Mini, New MacBook Nano, glass of Maudite (yum)

You’re probably wondering what works and what doesn’t. Here’s the breakdown, using the 7.5 beta of the boot disk and OS X version 10.5.6.

It’d be easier to list what doesn’t work.

• Sound works, but you can’t mute for some reason. If you sleep the machine, sound will not work until reboot. [EDIT: There's now a hack to bring sound back after a sleep. Mute isn't there yet, but I think it's close.] [EDIT:] Sound is now fully working.
• Large SDHC cards don’t seem to work. My 2GB SDHC card works like a champ, but my 32GB card doesn’t. [EDIT: I lie. They work just fine with the latest SDHC kernel extension].
• Getting SD cards to survive a sleep/wake is in beta. I’m trying that kernel extension out now, but reports are promising. Worst case is eject the card before your sleep. [EDIT: Works like a charm.]
• The keyboard takes a little getting used to.

It’s pretty solid and very nifty. Now that I have the 64GB SSD, getting the 32GB SDHC card isn’t as important to me, but I’d still like to get it working combined with the 32GB SD, that’s a solid 98GB of storage.

The forums at MyDellMini are indispensible if you’re going with the Dell (which I like, since all the components are accessible, and the hacking community is robust).