If you’d like to evaluate what OS X looks like on a non-Apple machine, the forum mydellmini.com is for you. A number of scary bright folks have figured out a repeatable and reliable method to get OS X Snow Leopard installed on the Dell Mini 9 as well as some other hardware. It appears the Mini 9 is the most compatible. Now I have to not that installing OS X on any machine not made by Apple is a violation of the EULA as noted in the Apple vs Psystar suit, so this effort, if you do make it, should be for testing purposes only and not for production.

There it’s been said. No hyperlinks are provided in this post. If you want more info you might try mydellmini in your favourite search engine.

Well I’ve done it. Dropped the money for a Netbook and I chose the Dell Mini 9. I chose the Mini 9 for a specific reason, the chance to try an install of OS X as mentioned by Andy Ihnatko and other luminaries. I ordered mine with 2GB of memory and the 32GB SSD drive running Ubuntu 8.04 As a fan of SUSE Linux, I find Ubuntu limiting so the plan was to go to SLED or openSUSE for Linux. Dell’s hardware has always worked for me.

Opening the box and plugging the unit into AC, the machine came up fast and after entering a user name I was up and running. I ordered bluetooth, the better camera and the larger memory. I tried to change my order to the 64gb drive after ordering but that wasn’t possible according to Dell Customer Service. Actually I hate Dell’s customer disservice, but the machine is good. Great screen, fast and quiet boot, 3 USB ports,VGA out and SD card slot, 802.11g and wired ethernet plus mic in and audio out. Certainly port rich, what should be on the MacBook Air.

I am right now running OS X on it, but will be moving to Linux for day to day soon enough, did the OS X thing to prove it could be done. It can and it’s brilliant.

My only complaints relate to the touchpad (it’s twitchy) and the keyboard in that my giant paws mistype a lot. Some keys have been moved that slows me down and I find it tiring if I do a lot of typing. For quick browsing or email, it’s great but I’d be in pain after a long session of typing. This is the compromise for me but if I use the device as intended it looks like its going to be pretty good value for the money.