OS X 10.5.6 on Eee PC 1000H

I’m preparing for my trip to Japan by installing Mac OS X on my Asus Eee PC 1000H.

I went to Fry’s Electronics yesterday with my friends from the Acts college fellowship at EFCW. I picked up a 2 GB SODIMM stick for $20 — an excellent deal IMHO.

Here’s a good guide for the RAM upgrade.

Installing the RAM was a bit trickier than I expected. You actually have to apply a significant amount of upward force to snap the bottom panel off, as there are plastic pieces on the sides that snap in and out of place. For those not familiar with installing RAM, note that while you move the metal clips out of the way to remove the old memory, you don’t touch them when installing the new memory. Just slide it into the slot and press down, so the clips snap over the memory stick automatically.

To install OS X, I’m primarily following the guide here. It’s working very well so far. I’ve just fixed the resolution, and it looks great at 1024×600 on the Eee PC’s 10″ display.

One tip: the Eee PC’s BIOS is extremely fast, showing up for merely a second or so on reboot. You need to keep pressing F2 “like a madman” to get to setup. I missed it several times because I wasn’t paying attention.

Previously, I’d used Kalyway when installing OS X on my ThinkPad Z61t. My friend uses iATKOS on his HP laptop. And now I’m trying out iDeneb v1.4 10.5.6. It looks like a pretty solid distro, although the authors’ English isn’t very good.

Photo Booth works out-of-the-box! I’ve read that many different webcams are used in the Eee PC 1000H — some work, some don’t. Looks like mine works!

Getting wireless to work was quite a trick. I tried installing the Ralink drivers twice. I hope that doesn’t cause any trouble down the road; don’t think it will, the 2nd time around it was instantaneous (which means it detected stuff was already there, and it didn’t have to do anything). In the end, the problem was simply that WLAN was turned off in the BIOS. So hit F2 and check your BIOS settings!

Now I’m downloading Firefox 3.0.7. Safari is a fine browser, but I really need the ability to change tabs with Ctrl+Tab!

The trackpad doesn’t work :( I was really hoping it would, because it also supports multi-touch, which should be well-supported under OS X. Certainly it works with Apple’s trackpads.

On the bright side, I’m using a Logitech wireless USB mouse, and it works superbly. Scroll wheel, left and right tilt wheel, right click — all works great.

Agh. The Fn and Control keys are in opposite places on the Eee PC versus the MacBook Pro. Why can’t computer companies put these in a standard place, like the ESC key?!

4 Responses to “OS X 10.5.6 on Eee PC 1000H”

  1. Joshua W says:

    Hope that you can work out the multitouch. I have been looking to pick up a mac because I want to start experimenting with iPhone development in my spare time, but it is a pretty expensive investment for one program. I was wondering how much the everything costs for the whole system.

  2. Nik says:

    Hi,

    Multitouch works somewhat (two finger drag up/down does scroll)…
    You can change the assigned keys for Fn and Control under System Preferences / Keyboard and Mouse

    Cheers,
    Nik

  3. tutankamon says:

    what about sound or screen resolution? is that ok?

  4. Thireus says:

    Quick comment !

    The last news regarding the install of OSX on our eeepc are there:

    http://www.enik.ch/2009/03/osx-leopard-1056-on-the-eee-1000h/

    I recommand you to go visiting my website (http://thireus.dareyourmind.net) and more precisely these articles:

    To get the microphone working:

    http://thireus.dareyourmind.net/index.php/macos-apps/13-get-microphone-and-audio-in-working-on-your-eeemac

    WARNING – READ THIS ARTICLE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KILL YOUR HARD DRIVE:

    http://thireus.dareyourmind.net/index.php/notebook-macos-tips/9-is-your-hard-drive-making-clunk-noises

    I hope the author of this article will modify it to include my modifications.

    Thireus.

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