Reg Hardware

Original URL: http://www.reghardware.com/2007/11/16/man_installs_osx_on_eee_pc/

Man buys Eee PC, erases Linux, installs Mac OS X Leopard

'Eee done what?

By Tony Smith

16th November 2007 10:43 GMT

An enterprising Eee PC user has managed to install Apple's Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, onto his tiny laptop - though he quickly saw the error of his ways and replaced the OS with the previous version, Tiger.

Blogger Dan, posting [1] on Uneasy Silence, notes that anyone attempting the maneouvre needs not only an external DVD drive but also a number of patches to reconfigure the Apple OS to operate on a processor lacking Intel's SSE 3 multimedia extensions.

Eee PC running OS X - image courtest uneasy silence [2]
Asus' Eee PC: booting into OS X

We'd also point out that a copy of Leopard that you've purchased is also de rigeuer.

Asus Eee PC 701
Asus' Eee PC and friend: fancy Leopard, missus?

And some patience. Not only with the lengthy patching and installation process - though it's nowhere near as onerous as unlocking an iPhone [3] - but with Leopard's performance on the Eee PC's 900MHz ultra-low voltage Celeron M processor and 512MB of memory.

Indeed, that's why Dan recently downgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.8, and presumably found it ran slightly more smoothly than Leopard. He reckons the original install took up about half of the Eee PC's 4GB solid-state drive.

And there appears to be some issue with Wi-Fi, which Dan last night said he was working on. We'll keep you posted when we hear more.

Related review
Asus Eee PC 4G [4]