Video: OQO hacked to run Leopard, now world's smallest Mac
While greeted with heaps of initial skepticism, forum jockeys over at OQO Talk now seem convinced that a junior member by the name of TRF has successfully hacked the OQO to run OS X Leopard. Adding a video filmed by Mr. Blurry Cam didn't hurt the cause. TRF's OQO is setup in a dual-boot Vista / OS X mode which boots Leopard in about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. WiFi, sound, power management and Bluetooth... it's all there with applications popping with serious snap. The only thing missing at the moment is WWAN access which TRF is now testing. While not yet a "plug and play" hack, it's "definitely doable," he says. Perhaps, but we'll need more details to say the least. Video excerpt posted after the break.
[Thanks Albert L. and lambda jones]
Read -- Forum post
Read -- Full Video
[Thanks Albert L. and lambda jones]
Read -- Forum post
Read -- Full Video


















very impressed to say the least. I know i can find them around, but any idea on what are the specs on a OQO?
According to the OQO website, it's:
- 1.6ghz CPU
- 1GB ram.
- Up to 120GB harddisk (Up to?)
- or 32/64gb SSD.
2 and a half minutes! Anyone knows how long it takes to boot Vista/XP?
My vista machine boots a lot faster ever since Vista SP1. It boots from being completely off to idle in about 30 seconds
nothing amazing here. Its just a UMPC like the sony UX... its still just a pc inside with a bios and all that jazz, and yes we know, its called a hacked osx disc, its all over the torrents. Its just a matter of following the PC way of installing the hack osx. Stupid. Over it. Just because its a small PC running OSX doesn't mean jack!
by the way, haven't you guys seen this on a small pc already.. eee pc? When it installs on my phone I'll be impressed, o wait, its called a iphone... ok ok, maybe if I see it on a arm device that isn't a iphone then I'll be impressed.
1.6 GHz VIA C7-M don't forget that part.
think they'll ever make an eee in this form factor?
that oqo costs like $1200!
"My vista machine boots a lot faster ever since Vista SP1. It boots from being completely off to idle in about 30 seconds"
On what computer Thomas?
Dual boot Vista and OSX? Very cool.
Seriously, Jobs should just let it go. Let users install mac in any x86 machine and tries to dominate M$.
Ballmer will sh!t his pants big time
Why is it all these uber-talented geeks can hack so many things and create so many interesting devices and yet they can't seem to ever get anything in focus?
@tom:
Microsoft is like McDonald's... you can find them everywhere, and they leave much to be desired (although they do satisfy quite a few people every day).
Apple is like a nicer restaurant that serves better food, but is harder to find, is a little more expensive, and serves many fewer people every day.
Now, if a fine restaurant wants to serve as many people as McDonald's, they would need to install a drive-thru, reduce the quality of the food in order to serve the targeted volume, reduce the complexity of their food in order to get more consistent results across the chain, and put one up every mile or two on the road.
At this point, you might as well have McDonald's. Similarly, Apple can't become Microsoft in one way without becoming it in other ways.
I've got a g5 mac as well as my own built pc.
I understand where you are trying to go with your analogy, but it's funny cause I see macs like mcdonalds as well since you have a set menu and there's relatively little you can do to change your order.
I see pcs more like being almost all the restaurants in the world. Some are amazing and expensive, some are amazing for the price, some are blah. I think there is a general mistake in thinking of pcs as one entity, when the diversity of pcs is what is it's strength and weakness.
Mac is like that fancy restaurant on the corner that has it's own set menu. They kind of do their own thing. They used to be about the neighborhood, but they've been growing in popularity and now have a bouncer and a guest list.
very cool, and useful. more proof than Psystar already.
For once, they found a machine more expensive than an actual mac...
It's cheaper than the Macbook Air, with similar configurations.
@Garst
The MBA comes with a Intel CPU, this comes with a VIA.
Gee imagine what Apple could do if they only took the time to listen to the consumers!
Become unprofitable?
I don't see why noot profitable. Actually, most of Vista's sales are through OEM channels more than retails. Apple could also do the same if Apple wants.
I'm wondering how they did this. The OQO has a VIA C7-M and AFAIK the FPU of that one isn't compatible. I would install OS X on my easynote either if I could
Very impressive, though whoever shot the video needs to get a macro lens. Watching that much blur is damaging to the eyes (no offense).
Unless there was hardware hacking involved I'm pretty sure the headline should be the other way around: "Leopard hacked to run on OQO"
Is that noise the fan?!? It sounds like a jet fighter's about to launch and every time he opens a new app it sounds more and more strained. Great work an' all but i don't think it will last very long.
lol maybe he overclocked it a little bit.
I bet if you could get a waterproof casing and chop a hole in the ice on the lake, you could overclock a UMPC by a lot!! Only kidding, please don't try this.
So all the hackers are smart enough to hack things, but don't understand what that magic flower button is doing on their cam? come on. Engadget should create a tutorial on how to activate macros on every possible cam on the market, since it seems to be so difficult to activate, and demand every hacker/leaker reads it.
>So all the hackers are smart enough to hack things, but don't understand what that magic flower button is doing on their cam?
Full ACK. The failure to understand how their camera works seems to be an universal trait among these guys. They're porting Zork to their camcorder first, before they learn to maintain focus.
There's a very good reason for this:
Notice how the reflections are well focused, this is the trade off for not having macro activated.
Now that the reflections are correctly displayed, there will be no claim of Photoshop's involvement to stain their credibility. It is then argued that because you can clearly see that the reflections are not off, and the pixels on the actual reflections are crisp, and clear; then regardless of how many shops you have seen in your time, this must be the 'real deal'.
Embeddable video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnnjOwFuLmQ
I would love to run Leopard on the similarly spec-ed HP Mini-Note.
it'd also have been great to be able to run it on the eeepc 701 but storage capacity would be far too low to run it comfortably maybe the eeepc 900.
You probably can. Search Google for mac osx emulators. PearPC is one example. I'm currently running the BasiliskII Mac OS 8 emulator an a 300 mhz pocket sized computer, Nokia 810. Response is fine. On a much faster processor, OS X ought to still be ok.
the oqo is now worth it... windows sucks
pretty cool !!
sounds like he's got his hairdryer on
There must have been a laptop running Vista somewhere in the room.
Just use kalyway Leopard patch for OX86 pc's. I'm using it now and it works. go to http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=77069 if you are interested.
moron
Personally, I'd rather have this on the Samsung Q1 (non-ultra). Complete with split-virtual-thumb-keyboards.
I thought Appke fanboys/girls considered it a sin to install Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.
Apple*
Does the touchscreen work under MacOS?
slowwww
Next time: TURN YOUR CAMERA AUTOFOCUS ON
Props to the hacker, but how is this useful? Sounds like the machine was working itself to death just for scrolling items. I wonder the the machine would overheat running such an operating system. I'd hate to have wait for that thing to launch Microsoft Word or Photoshop. Well, he proved that Leopard can be run on an underpowered computer, so that much he deserves credit for.
Photoshop actually doesn't take long at all to open under Leopard. Word takes forever though.
I am currently running Leopard quite happily on a 733MHz 1.5GB SDRAM Powermac G4 (Quicksilver 2001), and it loads up in less than 30 seconds. This is clearly not up to the job... i've heard of the 2001 quicksilver having a loud cooling system but this thing is ridiculous...! 2 and a half minutes! Hardly satisfactory! I agree with the:
"Microsoft is like McDonald's... you can find them everywhere, and they leave much to be desired (although they do satisfy quite a few people every day).
Apple is like a nicer restaurant that serves better food, but is harder to find, is a little more expensive, and serves many fewer people every day.
Now, if a fine restaurant wants to serve as many people as McDonald's, they would need to install a drive-thru, reduce the quality of the food in order to serve the targeted volume, reduce the complexity of their food in order to get more consistent results across the chain, and put one up every mile or two on the road.
At this point, you might as well have McDonald's. Similarly, Apple can't become Microsoft in one way without becoming it in other ways."
It is odd that the finder window overlaps the menu bar in the video.....
so we're supposed to trust a hacker that can hack a computer and an OS but can't use a friggin' video camera to focus?
right.
All this needs is a 10" screen and multi-touch Mac OS X and we'd have the ultimate portable Mac. Little pop-out rest on the back perhaps, when you want to rest the device (at an angle) for typing on a desk or table.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/83512992@N00/2381453879/
Ha, yeah, just wait until the iPhone 2.0
yea... I agree with mex.... this isn't that big of a deal... its a non apple PC running OSX.... old news... oh w8... nevermind!!! its small!!! that changes everything!!! *gasp*
Whats even funnier is this news bit is featured on OQO's front home page.
Leopard is nice.
But, I'm happy running Mac OS 8 on my pocket sized Nokia 810.
How do you get the WiFi to work? I figured the rest out just need the WiFi part now.
Thanks
Odd, Has anyone else remembered that Mac commercial that said something to the effect of "The fastest XP machine is a Mac?"
..Well, The smallest Mac machine is an OQO. Eat your heart out, Apple.