How I installed OS X on my MSI Wind.
I had so much trouble with this (honestly) and had to pick and chose from multiple different sources, that I figured I'd post this here, in case anybody had trouble like me.
I'm not a hacker. I'll say that straight out. I might be technical, but it takes me a very long time to understand things, and take direction. So hopefully this is the less-technically inclined version of those other tutorials.
The first thing I got, obviously, was this pink MSI Wind. Yours doesn't have to be pink, but it helps. Once receiving the Wind, the first thing I did was peel off those hideous stickers on the palmrest. I'm a Mac girl at heart, and stickers take away from the asthetics. Steven would be ashamed at the number of lights and buttons, but then again, he'd be ashamed that I even did this.
That aside, you'll need some materials.
1. A little .iso called MSIWindosx86.iso. It's actually not little. It's about 3.8 GB little. I like this one best because it didn't kernel panic on me, and pretty much is tailored to work with the Wind. Just don't update the way you would a normal mac. And you'll have to find out how to update on your own.
2. A flash drive. Seeing that you'll need to stick 3.8 GB on it, I recommend a flash drive at least twice that.
3. Chameleon-1.0.11-installer.dmg I originally downloaded some version of Chameleon that was just the source code, and obviously, no good for doing it simply.
4. Here's the tricky part. You might read on some older articles that MSI Wind needs you to replace its wireless card in order to work with Mac OS X. Then you'll read other articles that say no, you don't have to, and you can just use the leaked Realtek driver. Which is okay, *if* your Wind shipped with a Realtek card. Well, mine didn't. I'm assuming they switched cards or are switching them up, but mine looks like this:
That's the AzureWave AW-GE780 card. Now, you can try to use the Realtek driver if you want, here and here. Hang onto that just in case, for a later step.
5. This is only if the card that came with your Wind is incompatible, or you just want to get a different one. I'm purchasing this card on eBay. I've heard other places that it works, and I'll give it a try and update this when I know better.
So now that you've got all your .dmgs and .isos downloaded, you'll want to get your drive ready. These are mac-specific instructions, sorry Windows users.
Plug your flash drive into your Mac, and open Disk Utility. It's under Applications > Utilities. Find your drive on the left-hand side of Disk Utility, and click it. (See the blue below for what you need to click.)
Next, look to the right side of the pane, and select the Partition button. Click the drop-down menu that says "current" under "Volume Scheme" and change that to say "1 Partition." Make sure the format is set to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." Then, click the "Options..." button below.
Select "Master Boot Record" and then click "Ok." This makes it so you can boot from your thumbdrive. (Almost.)
Click Apply. NOTE: It's probably already obvious to you, but this will erase your thumbdrive. After all, that's what formatting is, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that.
After the process is completed, you're ready to load the drive. Take your MSIWindosx86.iso file, and drop it onto the white space under all those drives listed in Disk Utility. You should be familiar with drag-and-drop if you are, and are going to remain, a Mac user. Ta-da! Now it will be listed like your thumbdrive and all. Now, double-click on the .iso. It will mount and look like another little drive under it.
Click on that little "Restore" tab at the top that I've highlighted in blue. Then go over and drag your mounted iso (the one also highlighed in blue) over to the "Source" part on the right. Drag the formatted thumb drive over to the "Destination" part. Make sure that "Erase destination" is still checked. Click "Restore" at the bottom right. Go make dinner, or start a TV show on Hulu.com. This is going to take a while.
When completed, leave the drive in, but open up the Chameleon .dmg file. Open the "Chameleon_V_1.0.11" file and it will run you through an installer. IMPORTANT: When it gets to the part where it asks you to select the disk you want to install it on, select your flash drive. Also, you will hear a strange music that you can't figure out where it's coming from. It's on the mounted drive, and will stop when you eject it. Turn off your volume, and relax.
When that part is ready, NOW you're ready to install OS X. Unplug the thumbdrive, and stick it into your Wind. Boot your Wind up, and hold down/press the F11 key which will bring you into a boot menu. Select your thumbdrive, and proceed.
The install process will go smoothly from here. You won't have internet yet, so you can't enter your MobileMe or any registration information. Your webcam also probably won't work, so when it asks you to select an icon to use with your profile, just pick an icon.
Once everything is started up, try installing those Realtek drivers from earlier. If they don't work, there is one other driver you can try. You might have a RALink card instead, in which case, you need the RALink driver here. Obviously that didn't work for me, but if that's what you have, then yay.
If you have the card I have, which again is the AzureWave AW-GE780 card, then as of now, there are no Mac drivers for it. So you'll have to order another card, such as the one suggested earlier.
I will update when I get it to let you know exactly how it works out.
The other thing, is that the audio jacks on the side don't work. The SD card reader WILL work. The camera works, but not with Photo Booth. Open iChat and try it out, and you'll see. It may work with other programs as well.
I haven't checked anything else, honestly, but as I do, I will be sure to update this.
The following links helped me accomplish this:
http://lifezero.squarespace.com/journal/2009/5/10/guide-to-os-x-on-msi-wind.html
http://www.ericsantiago.com/eric_santiago/2009/06/netbook-undergoes-a-osx-change.html
http://www.geardiary.com/2008/12/17/the-creation-of-a-hackintosh/
http://www37.atwiki.jp/msi_wind/?cmd=word&word=IntelGMA950GME-10.5.5.tar.bz2%20download&type=normal&page=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%B9%E3%82%BF%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA%2FMac%20OS%20X
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16806369/Msi-Wind-u100-Dual-Boot-Osx-1
Depressing Morning
So today I woke up at 10:00, which is WAY earlier than I've been getting up lately. There was going to be a free Kevin Devine show in Philadelphia. I'd been so hyped about it all week, because it's FREE. So I leave this morning 1 hour 15 minutes before the show. It's a 45 minute drive. I figure I'll be fine.
So the show's at XPN/World Cafe Live, and the University of Pennsylvania is kind enough to open up some of their lots for free parking. This is excellent, because it's pretty much impossible to find parking in that area. The first time I had gone to see a show there, the parking lot was a little hard to find, but I eventually did, and made it to the show on time.
Except this time, it was a different lot. I had no way of finding the lot. I was already running late because I had to stop for gas, and there was a bit of traffic. So I passed XPN at exactly 12:03 pm. But I couldn't find the fucking lot. I called WCL to see if they knew where this lot was. The girl had never heard of Lot 26. She explained XPN and WCL were separate (yeah, okay.) and she never heard anything about free parking. This was in my invitation. I don't expect everyone to know everything, but I was rather disappointed at how unhelpful she was. I tried calling XPN. It rang and rang and finally made this weird noise, picked up, and dropped the call. So at this point it's 12:25 because I've circled the entire 5 block radius 3 times, and I still can't find this goddamned lot.
I start to cry, because I'm stupid, and decide to just drive the 45 minutes back home, without seeing the show.
So for now on, I'm not going to any more free KD shows. This same thing happened when I sent to see him for free in New Jersey for the first time ever. I ended up being an hour late because I couldn't even find the place. But that was back before GPS when all I had was Google Maps printouts.
Anyway to cheer myself up, I bought Snow Leopard at Apple, and got to see a bunch of my old coworkers and friends. I also went grocery shopping and threw out an entire fridge worth of spoiled food. So I feel like today was productive. Unfortunately, now that I'm sitting here thinking, I'm just really upset that I didn't end up going to the show. Right now I need it more than anything. That sort of thing is the perfect pick-me-up, and I blew it.
My finger will fall off.
So about a week ago, Brady and I made a bed from Ikea. You all know that. I briefly mentioned that I slammed one of the pieces of wood into my left thumb, while we were pushing the pieces of the bed together. That picture is here. I'll not embed it to spare you if you don't really want to see it.
So at this point, I'm waiting for it to heal. I realize it's more than likely dried blood, and not just a bruise, so I will probably have to wait a long time for it to fully grow out. Like up to 6 months. It's also very possible that it won't grow out, and it will fall off, and I will just have to grow a new thumbnail from scratch.
It really sucks, and the thought of having an ugly fingernail bothers me. I bite my nails bigtime, and I worry about having an ugly thumbnail. I worry that if I go to the nail salon they will judge me based on my ugly thumb.
I'll keep you updated on the status of my ugly thumb in coming months.
A new bed. Err… Pile of wood.
This past week the bed frame Brady and I had been using finally broke. It was one of those plain metal kinds on wheels. Not very sturdy to begin with, but the wheel literally snapped off, and we were left with a bed on a slope. I was joking with him that I was having dreams about falling, sliding, slipping, etc.
Saturday Brady and I went to Walmart. I should note here that I've never shopped at Walmart for myself and never intend on doing so. I feel embarrassed for human society when I go there, and feel like disciplining other peoples' children. After hearing me complain for the first 10 minutes, and not finding a bedframe at all, Brady decided we would take the adventure 45 minutes away from Delaware, to the nearest Ikea.
I've never been to Ikea. I was expecting a store on par with Target, Best Buy, or something similar. But no, this was like the Please-Touch-Museum. Or an Art museum. There was actual organization here, which was a relief in comparison to Walmart. They even had a food court. The food seemed really cheap, but was not Vegan, and I did not partake.
Finding an appropriate bedframe was the difficult part. We didn't actually get to the section we needed until the end. All the bedframes seemed to be either size Queen or Twin. We have a Full sized bed. We contemplated a few that were no better than simply having the mattress on the ground itself. We wanted storage, but all the ones with storage were in the $300 range.
Then, we decided to go into the kids section, and we found it. A nice sturdy wooden loft bed with space for "activities" (Step Brothers reference). It was $199 on sale from $399. We would be able to bring Brady's couch back upstairs from the basement, and have our own living quarters under the bed. I have to say, however, that the idea of a loft bed makes me very nervous, but the sign at Ikea said it'd hold 400 lbs weight, and we probably weigh 281 lbs combined. I hope we'll be okay. I've never seen a loft bed collapse except for in Step Brothers
The other concern I had was that we drove to Ikea in my 2-door Volkswagen Rabbit. It's been known to haul a good bit of stuff, but I wasn't sure if it would fit an entire loft bed. Luckily the entire bed was packed away neatly in two separate boxes that had no problem fitting into my car (surprise!) and we were able to get the bed home.
That was the easy part.
I understand the need for instructions to be easy to understand for any language, but I don't even think the Swedish could understand the instructions. It's all up to interpretation, and involved a lot of staring at tiny details in the pictures. Brady and I work tech support for a living so are used to figuring out problems and understanding the mechanics of things. So what I didn't understand was how do other people figure out how to build these damn things? Do they all call the Ikea people to come to their house and build these things? And how do those people handle their job? There must be some sort of high-suicide rate. I can't imagine having to build shit from Ikea all day every day. I would probably cry.
Despite a bashed up thumb, red and near-bleeding hands, scared cats, and probably angry neighbours, we were able to assemble the bed within 8 hours. I don't love the bed, but I love the extra space. I've never assembled anything from Ikea, and I will never be assembling anything from Ikea ever again. Next time we go to Ikea, we're buying plates instead. They don't require assembly (or at least I don't think they do!)
And so now, I understand this comic.
Some things.
1. I'm listening to Tori Amos a lot today, and really enjoying it.
2. For lunch, I had black beans and rice with veggie crumbles, a "ham and cheese" sandwich on potato bread, and scalloped potatoes made with nutritional yeast. A recipe I found in Peta's College Cookbook.
3. I'm going to finish up Dexter season 3 when I get home from work today. Only 2 more episodes.
4. I need to do some actual work today.
5. My stomach has calmed down from earlier. I was feeling yucky.
6. The next 6 months are going to be awesome. Going to Texas, California, Nevada, and Lewes, Delaware. Not at the same time. My mom is renting a beachouse this summer, I'm hoping to see Holly for hopefully a week also this summer. Then in November for Thanksgiving, I'm flying out to Las Vegas, Nevada with my mom and little sister. We're going to then take the 4.5 hour drive to our destination in California and stay there for a week.
7. I have 1 1/2 hours left of work.
8. Bad things: I noticed that my WordPress blog doesn't know what timezone I'm in.
9. I noticed my new doll's eyebrows don't match her wig.
Mark Twain was a Vegetarian.
I'm starting to get that itch where I don't want to write anymore. It's a pain in the but, it's embarrassing, and I feel like no one reads my entries anyway. But I'll do it, because I can, and maybe someone gets some kind of enjoyment out of it.
I went over to my mom's house yesterday. We went to a little play her community was putting on. It was just a few parts of some of Mark Twain's stories. It was cute. It was very difficult to hear a lot of the actors due to lack of enunciation, or they spoke too softly, but it was entertaining. There was this adorable little boy playing one of the parts in Tom Sawyer, and he must've been about 4 or 5. He was begging Tom to paint in this adorable little voice. He even put on a bit of a southern accent. He didn't really like to stay where he was supposed to be. Curtain call was tough because he wanted to stand in the middle of the stage and wave to everybody, but adorable, none the less.
I made dinner for my mom as well, and I'm a little frustrated with how that went down. I cook for Brady all the time, and he doesn't care if it's vegan or not. He loves everything I cook and eats it and gets seconds later. But my mom was picking on the food. She shouldn't care if it's got meat in it or not. If it's delicious, you eat it. I know she was just teasing me because it was "fake" meat, but honestly, if I was cooking that in a pot, with all the taco sauce on it, it smells good, and it looks like meat, so I'm not sure what difference it makes. Frustrations aside, she did end up eating it, and said it was good, but didn't want me to leave the rest of it with her. I took it home, and Brady ate it, and said it was good, so at least I know it wasn't disgusting. My little sister wouldn't eat it because it had corn and onions in it.
I offered to cook for her again, just sans soy cheese and wheat meat. But she doesn't understand that food can legitimately be made vegan. Animal products don't HAVE to be in something for it to be tasty. I'm sure there's plenty of foods that you've eaten that are vegan by nature. Minestrone soup, Oreo cookies, pasta, pancakes (sometimes). And when I told her I was making vegan cupcakes that mysteriously disappear within days of making them, she said that was disgusting too, and couldn't imagine what one would bake with if I left out the butter and eggs. I noted that so many eat margarine, which is a butter replacement, without thinking twice. But the moment I put "soy" in the word it's disgusting. I'll cook something some day that she won't be weirded out by, but I guess until then she'll always be suspicious of my cooking.
In other news, another one of my dolls was repainted recently. To give you a refresher, she used to look like this:
But I had Aileen (frozen wings on DOA) repaint her to be my cute little deadly Zombie/Elf girl:
I'm going to get her these eyes in 12mm spirit dove. Then she'll need a little outfit, and eventually her own body. That's at least exciting.
A Review of the Headphones
So, I used the headphones all this morning. I really like them. They sound good, even though I've never really used headphones that went over my ears like that. It blocks sound out totally, and requires Brady to wave his hands at me if he wants my attention.
Now... the downside. I noticed the top band is definitely a leather-like material. I'm not a leather person, and especially not now because of my new vegan lifestyle. I'm so conflicted because it's not like I can get rid of them, and I really like them, and they were cheaper than any set of headphones that I could find, that I actually LIKE. I just feel icky whenever I use them and weird. I can't tell if it's leather, but it DEFINITELY looks like leather and smells like leather.
I just feel like a hypocrite, but I honestly didn't know it had leather on it. I could have emailed the person selling them, but I was lazy, and I didn't.
So now I just feel guilty, and I don't want to stop using them, because it's a waste of money and a waste of an animal's life. I'm glad I didn't buy them from the actual manufacturer, but someone still made money off it.