Leopard on Eee: A match made in heaven?

Inevitable? Yes. Super great? Absolutely. Do we potentially derive too much pleasure from answering our own questions? Quite possibly. Asus has really built itself a PC ripe for the tinkering -- as Dan at UNEASYsilence points out, there's a bootable DVD included to restore the thing to factory settings, so the worst that can happen is you blow a few hours on a bum install. Of course, Leopard wasn't really designed to speed along on this level of horsepower, but the Eee PC still managed to run the OS, and the pre-hacked disk images available on the internets make it fairly straightforward process. Instructions are at the read link.

[irene @ Jan 24th 2008 6:38PM]

Just bought a pink EEE surf 2G... but cannot get onto my Airport based Wifi network. Eee sees the network but unlike my Macs and Tivo, doesn't ever connect (It pends.) Any suggestions?

Also has anyone gotten on line with the Eee running Tiger? I own both Tiger and Leopard....

[psxp @ Nov 15th 2007 4:25PM]

wow.. it would be nice to run OS X 10.5 on something like this!

[joey @ Nov 15th 2007 4:26PM]

Or photoshop :)

[Alan Partridge @ Nov 15th 2007 4:38PM]

Someone has managed to get Vista running on it
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=1875&p=1

[ark_v2 @ Nov 15th 2007 7:04PM]

But someone hasn't managed to realize this is engadget :)

[lassi @ Nov 16th 2007 10:36AM]

if it had more ram, then perhaps, yes, it could be fun if you're into osx.


so, upgrading the ram would be highly recommended(in the cheapest versions the ram is soldered on though?? so says wikipedia)

[Frank @ Nov 15th 2007 4:27PM]

Wouldn't it run faster with 10.4 Tiger? Someone please test that out....

[Shaocaholica @ Nov 15th 2007 4:33PM]

You should be able to dial down Leopard to perform just as fast as Tiger, no?

[RIFRAF @ Nov 16th 2007 2:26PM]

Frank, in the article Dan states he didn't like the performance of leopard and went with tiger instead and it works great. He says he has some quirks to work out but it's functioning with 2gb's of left over drive space.

[Frank @ Nov 16th 2007 5:25PM]

Sometimes I get so excited I don't bother reading the entire article. Reading is overrated anyways. That laptop should come with Ubuntu anyways.

[kastonie @ Nov 15th 2007 4:28PM]

Someone should put BeOS on one of these...then id be impressed

[McGinley @ Nov 15th 2007 5:10PM]

Why dont YOU do it yourself?

[James Baker @ Nov 15th 2007 6:21PM]

BeOS 5 Pro doesn't like P4-class machines, unfortunately. This uses a core closer to a P3, so I don't know if it would work or not. It might have issues with the chipset.
The free BeOS 5 Max based on an updated BeOS 5 PE might work, and Zeta would likely work as well.
I want to get a 4GB SD card and load it up with various OS images that I can easily throw on the device at a whim, for just this purpose :)

[Redstripe @ Nov 15th 2007 4:37PM]

The post of this on lifehacker mentioned that Leopard ran very slow. He settled for Tiger on the system and was impressed with the results.

Pretty much the cheapest Mac Laptop you can find to browse the internet and do a little word processing.

[thethirdmoose @ Nov 15th 2007 4:42PM]

nah
old iBooks are probably cheaper and faster

[Redstripe @ Nov 15th 2007 4:46PM]

Depends on what you are looking for. The Eee is like 2 lbs, tiny, and brand new. I'd like to see what kind of condition an iBook would be in that you could purchase for $400. Probably wouldn't even have an aiport card.

[Aaron @ Nov 15th 2007 7:17PM]

That's good that for comparison's sake the iBook will be without an Airport card, because the wireless on the eee under either Leopard or Tiger DOES NOT WORK.

[Luigi193 @ Nov 15th 2007 7:58PM]

WRONG!!!

My sister got an iBook 1.42 with 1.25 gbs of RAM AND airport AND bluetooth AND a 3 year apple care warranty for 450$ on craig's list...just 50 more.

We got it from the Burlington Vermont section, I see deals on them all the time! Look your self...

[Neeko @ Nov 15th 2007 4:47PM]

I see how this is cool. But if ur just gonna use it to browse the internet and word proc then all that work for OSX is a waste. unless your just a true mac fanboy.

[ldrn @ Nov 15th 2007 5:01PM]

Not that I would ever endorse such a hack, but... it's nice to test webpages in Safari if you're a developer. The EEE would be small enough to take with you on trips along with your real computer, and the full OSX and Safari would mean you'd be able to check your pages easily.

Really, what more than web browsing would such a machine need to do in that situation?

[Russell @ Nov 15th 2007 5:14PM]

Its also nice to test web pages at more than 800x480 resolution. I can see all kinds of great applications for one of these and web design is NOT one of them.

[John @ Nov 15th 2007 5:51PM]

I'm pretty sure that Konquerer uses the same rendering engine as safari

[Luigi193 @ Nov 15th 2007 7:59PM]

Doesn't safari for windows use the same engine.....

[MyPackage @ Nov 15th 2007 4:58PM]

Someone get Windows ME running on this!

[Tereasa @ Nov 15th 2007 5:30PM]

Windows ME? I'd take Microsoft Bob!

[Marcos @ Nov 15th 2007 5:30PM]

Safari is available for Windows too. You can run Windows on this thing without breaking any EULAs.

[SFO Kevin @ Nov 15th 2007 5:08PM]

Maybe Steve will pull this out of his pants next spring?...

[Andy @ Nov 15th 2007 6:20PM]

don't kid yourself. Let's be honest, mac fanboys want steve to pull something a little more Ṃễậty than this out of his pants...

[It Was Luck @ Nov 15th 2007 5:14PM]

$400 for the Laptop
$80 for Leopard
The skill the to do this: Priceless

[Argot @ Nov 15th 2007 5:34PM]

Man, you buy an Eee so you DON'T have to run any CrApple or M$ OS on it!

[phoomp @ Nov 15th 2007 5:53PM]

Exactly. It's impressive that it *can* run Leopard or Vista, but on a box like this, I'd stick with a Linux install.

[masternave @ Nov 15th 2007 5:48PM]

VIDEOS!!! I demand proof! That is utterly cool.

[EvoM @ Nov 15th 2007 6:21PM]

Many people managed to dual boot windows Vista/XP and Mac OS X 10.4 on their PCs successfully; thanks to "project OSx86"

Leopard recipe does not differ much too, so I wont be surprised if someone boot it using Asus Eee

Check http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page for more info

[Hasin Khan @ Nov 15th 2007 6:07PM]

why haven't Apple released a small laptop like this?, there is a massive market for ultra portable devices and to find one that you don't have to run the tragic Vista on is great even better with Leopard.

[grayskyz @ Nov 15th 2007 6:52PM]

Massive market? No there ain't. All these umpcs are lame and slow. Everyone wants these ultra mobile pc's but, then they start to cry when it won't do something. It wont play HD! It doesn't have a TV tuner! It can't play WoW! It only holds eight gigs? My ipod holds 160! Everyone wants their own pc's shrank to 1/8 the size with a 12hour battery life. There is no mass market for what no consumers can agree on.

gray

[Hasin Khan @ Nov 15th 2007 7:18PM]

Sorry what I meant was there is massive potential market for these devices and you are right most current UMPC's are underpowered and they struggle to manage with basic built in apps, but what you are doing is thinking these devices are laptops they are not, nor do I imagine they are designed for any of the uses you have listed. If you use an UMPC regularly you would know they are good for specific tasks but are not suitable for serious work, their size will not permit anyone to use them for the length of time one would use a desktop or a regular sized laptop.

[Ash A @ Nov 15th 2007 11:47PM]

That's awesome! Really makes me want a Eee PC more.

Here's an article I wrote on how to get Tiger on to your PC:
http://lemonlimedesigns.ca/blogs/index.php/tips/installing-mac-os-x-on-a-windows-pc

[Russell @ Nov 16th 2007 12:12AM]

I want to make them into Windows Server 2008 Core (No GUI) blades. :o

[Oli @ Nov 16th 2007 8:26AM]

DOS for the win!

[Joshua Walters @ Nov 16th 2007 10:51AM]

Im not much of an apple fan, but I might get one just to have Leopard on. Its always good to be familiar with other OSs.

The possibilities this carries just make me want to get one! They are pretty cheap to!

[mick @ Nov 28th 2007 7:04PM]

can the Eee pc play wow (world of warcraft)?

[Alex @ Dec 5th 2007 10:16PM]

@Mick - Yes it can.

Alright, ive tried the following out on the Eee: XP, Xandros, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Mandriva 2008. After trying them all ive stuck with XP for various reasons. Any other Linux distro other than the standard one has some major problems. Mind you, they are problems that can be worked out but either way you lose the ability to quickboot and at time even the ability to shutdown without a hard shutdown.

Xp though, with a small amount of tinkering to make it stay 800x480 without the irritating asus utility process running as well as the sound driver and other bugs, runs everything quite nice. XP also has a, get this, 12 second boot with the proper startup items. Although, i dont recommend a standard XP install, using nlite to tone the size and unnecessary ram usage down is a great solution.

Youve gotta hand it to microsoft. Their most popular product has worked like a charm in more cases than one.