Man hacks Mac OS X onto MSI Wind

From Air to Wind

By Tony Smith, 16th July 2008

Fancy a 10in MacBook, anyone? We've seen Mac OS X installed and run on Asus' original Eee PC, and now someone's done the same on the MSI Wind, aka the Advent 4211.

To be fair, hardware hacker Paul O'Brien admits there's plenty of bits that don't work once Leopard's up and running - most notably Wi-Fi and putting the machine into hibernation mode - and the process requires downloading some iffy hacked installers off the torrents.

Paul's posted a detailed list of instructions for the process and a video guide too:

Can't see the video? Download FlashPlayer from Adobe.com

The wireless problem can be fixed by swapping out the Wind's Realtek-made Wi-Fi card for a Broadcom-based unit which Mac OS X will recognise. Getting some of the other features to work - sleep, Ethernet and so on - is just a matter of installing some modified kernel extension files.

The upshot is a decent-running Mac sub-notebook, Paul says, though we're sure his decision to upgrade the Wind's memory to a full 2GB helps. Even so, that's not bad for a £280 computer. Now, how much is the MacBook Air again?

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Posted Wednesday 23rd July 2008 11:26 GMT

Diccon

@Nikolaus

Nice attempt to impress us all with how much you earn, but £3000/hr is pushing the limits of credibility.

Posted Wednesday 23rd July 2008 08:58 GMT

Nikolaus Heger

Get a Job, You Slackers!

Did anyone else notice this is a really silly article?

The guy hacking a Wind into running OS X - that's mad, and awesome. If you are having fun hacking hardware, great stuff. But for the rest of us...

How much is the MacBook Air again? For the time spent hacking a Wind, I could also work in my real job and buy 2 MacBook Airs. Wow such a bargain, thinking about it this way! Like, they did all the hacking for you, it's not even hacking, it's officially supported, and it's a much nicer piece of hardware to boot. And they'll just hand it to you, trading for a few hours worth of work in your job. Compared with a hacked Wind, the MBA is the best deal on the planet. ;)

I also don't think Apple care at all. If they take action it will be because legal determined that they have to in order to protect a trademark or the EULA as in if they didn't they'd have trouble defending these in future cases. But concerned about the unwashed masses going out and modifying their Wind in this fashion? Surely not.

Posted Friday 18th July 2008 07:31 GMT

Anonymous Coward

I recommend a butt plug. Soon :)

Let's just say the smackdown is coming, and it's gonna beat his punk ass --

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/16/apples-lawsuit-against-psystar-examined/

A bunch of large gentlemen will arrive shortly, in expensive suits and using very fancy English, charging $2,000+ per hour, and demanding a blank cheque to "settle" the matters of breaching the EULA, diluting the trademark, etc.

Laptop? £280!

OS X Leopard? Free! From 'da torrents ;)

Getting raped by a shit-tonne of lawyers on YouTube? Priceless!