Niiiiiiiiiiice. Booted into MacOS Allowed it to install all its updates (including an EFI firmware update) Downloaded and installed Boot Camp Let Boot camp re-partition and split the disk in two Downloaded and installed rEFIt Inserted Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop CD Rebooted with 'c' held down. Installed ubuntu to /dev/sda3 with no swap partition and grub installed on (hd0,2) Rebooted and selected Linux from the rEFIt menu Logged into my shiny new Ubuntu install Created a swapfile /var/spool/swap.file Added swap file to fstab /var/spool/swapfile none swap sw 0 0 swapon -a Install virtualbox rsync my XP image from my laptop to the mac Boot and go :)
I love it. MacOS is lovely. Really nice. In fact I could probably get used to using that as my primary OS if I tried a little harder. The Mini itself is a lovely bit of kit. Quiet, reasonably quick. Dual Proc (yay!). DVI output at 1600x1200 is gorgeous (My first DVI machine). I also splashed out and bought an apple keyboard which is great. Keys nicely located, wonderful feel, looks speccy, inbuilt USB to connect my trackball. Keyboard cable is too short though. I want to put the mini on the shelf behind my desk and the keyboard cable is not long enough. Oh, and Ubuntu has a specific "US - Mac" keyboard layout :) At the moment its only got 512MB ram, so onto the RAM upgrade, but other than that I love it. I spent considerable time scouting the stores for super quiet desktop machines with usable specs and they all ran from about 3k and up, so at 3.5k the mini is well within the ballpark of the other boxes. Ubuntu detected and setup the on-board wifi (not that I'm using it at the moment) and the Marvell Sky2 net card (which has worked ok so far). The processor has VT extensions if I wanted to play with it and of course it's got the dual layer DVD burner built in. All in all I'm pretty happy with the machine. Only one quirk bugs me, and that is with ubuntu I need to use the power button to wake the machine from S3. In MacOS I can wake it with the USB keyboard also, which is nice. Oh, the initial ubuntu install took forever. Seems the Superdrive might be a little slow with random seeks. Brad -- "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." -- Douglas Adams
