I installed Mac OS X on my MSI Wind today and its running perfectly! The installation went very smooth and everything is working fine including the wifi, webcam, bluetooth, ethernet port and sound. I really didn’t think OS X would run so well on the Wind, I love it! I am actually so happy with the Wind now I am going to be selling my Asus Eee 900. I tried installing OS X on it today also but it was running really slow so I just went ahead and installed the dreadful Windows XP. Its running much better but I prefer OS X over XP any day so thats why I am going to be sell it. I will be losing money on it since the price of it has dropped since I got it but since I got the MSI Wind for free I don’t mind. The thing is I really don’t have the need for two ultra portables in my life and the fact that the Wind is running OS X means I will always choose it over my Asus.
If anyone is interested in installing OS X on the Wind all you need to get it working right is a Dell wifi card. I purchased the Dell 1490 from eBay for $15 with shipping.
Update: My Asus Eee 900 is now listed for sale in the forum [Link]
28 replies on “The MSI Wind and Mac OS X”
Again, Linux all the time 🙂 i have XP, Ubuntu & Fedora all in one with Asus 1000h 🙂
Linux and XP are the same to me 🙂
Result!
Well done. Good review. I’m still loving my MSI…. Even with xp.
how fast is it compared to a macbook?
ASUS IS FTW
Usually we dont see that much of concentration on one subject in your blog as we see now with the MSI .. I wonder why ? 😉
Just kidding .. dont ban me .. I am just in love with the Eeee and I have plenty of issues to debate .. but I dont feel like it today.
lol sorry but its a slow day and I didn’t do anything except for all this OS X installation on the Asus and Wind.
BTW my OSX problem on the Eee is because its the 900 not the 901. The 901 I believe doesn’t have a problem running OSX. I am a big fan of the Eee but I had to choose between it and the Wind and OSX made the choice easier.
Mark, OSX based on unix , Linux is unix and now you are saying that XP & Linux are the same !!!!!!!
Hummm !!!!!
when u said ur getting a card from amazon i though ur getting a usb wifi dongle. i didnt think that u would cut open ur wind and do it this way…. nice
*cries*
default windows xp (i mean just install OS and use) sucks for sure compared to OS X, but all know that windows after some tweaking and installing some programs, OS X is a joke.
thats prove how microsoft should working on windows experience out of the box.
Mac is great. It is the most successful *nix OS based on open source software.
But I think Linux is the best. I used Fedora, Ubuntu and then Mandriva. I am now stick with Mandriva on my Toshiba Satellite. I am waiting for the KDE 4.1 in Mandriva. KDE 4.1 look like a mix of MAC and Vista.
Yeah KDE much much better than GNOME
Good going Mark! I wonder if I should try installing OS X on my laptops.
Did you use the insanelymax/osx86 tutorials?
nope, just downloaded the MSIWindosx86.iso
[rambling]
You do realize that installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware is illegal, don’t you? Of course, no one gives a damn about the local laws here, so why respect the international ones now?
[/rambling]
Tempting setup though.
Where do i get the iso file?
Hi Mark,
I’d like to know how did you get the Dell broadcom wifi card from ebay, if you can guide me I want to purchase it too. I did check with ZAK Solutions here and i guess half of their technical staff does not know what I’m talkin’ about !
Hey Mark,
You say that sound is working ok. Does that mean that Skype works with headphones and internal mic? How about the slash key, are issues with that resolved?
Asim,
Just search “dell wifi 1490” on ebay and a whole lot of ’em will come up. Easy Breezy.
thanks alot Bruno, but i found out that there is this company in shuwaikh right next to electrozan called “advance …” something .. they have em. !! 😀 i wanted the card for my XPS as i have mac on it !! 😀 .. thanks anyway !!
Sweet, did you have to remove a standoff when installing the wifi card?
A few corrections are in order, eh? Great post.
1. Did you actually get the sound microphone and earphone port to work? I don’t think there are any current fixes regarding this, even as late as January 2009. If you place your earphone in the earphone jack, the sound is not transmitted through the earphones but still plays through the computer’s speakers.
2. You don’t need to replace the WIFI card. You DON’T need to buy a new one. The drivers for the WIFI card are already on the MSI Wind cds and there are plenty of drivers on the net from RaLink or RealTek that get the WIFI card working in all three major operating systems: Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows XP. My recommendation is not to open up the computer, not to replace the WIFI, card and not to void the Warranty. Everything on the system works fine, except for the sound card midi ports in Mac OS X. I don’t know what people are saying about the slash key, but here it is working / under MSI Wind OS X, as you can see the slash.
3. When are you going to ever respond to all your friends who have replied to your post?
There are some developments regarding sound as I have read but it apears still a little flaky. Here are some sites as reference:
https://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/04/all-sound-final.html
https://forums.msiwind.net/osx-drivers/almost-fully-working-voodoohda-speakers-headphone-ext-mic-t10871.html
I’m also seeing reports of battery issues with OS X on the msi Windbook… can you confirm?
Hi,
I bought a 2 month old msi wind running win xp and mac osx. Long story short, I got the ‘new software is available for your computer’ on the mac side, downloaded the updates, restarted, then the screen became 800×600. I looked on the mac forum for help and followed instructions on downloading 3 items and restarting after each time. On the third item, the apple appears, then, a white blank screen with horizontal lines. XP still works perfectly. How can I redo the mac side (using windows) from scratch or better yet, who can I call or send my computer to so I don’t do any more damage? Help! Thanks!!
Joe
I had the very same problem! I solved it by using the existing (from the update) GMA950.kext, but replacing the AppleIntelIntegratedFramebuffer.kext with the one from eNik’s latest ‘bundle’ from https://www.enik.ch/2008/10/osx-leopard-1055-on-the-eee-1000h/ (kexts installed using kext helper)
Hope this helps!
im like you i owned a Asus 900 EEE PC. I hate the fact that it only had 900ghz intel celeron and 1gb of ram. I sold that thing and bought a MSI WIND u100 because of the price. I am glad i made the switch! Runs XP with little lag. With my Asus 900, it would lag when I had multiple screens. I hate the fact that if i still had a Asus i had to buy a runcore ssd card just to make it faster and have more memory. The price of the ssd is way expensive for something over 16gb. When i upgraded the ram and made the switch to osx on my wind. I was shure happy! =D no external hard drive for me