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Mac OSX Leopard on a Gateway tablet?

Posted by admin Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:03:00 GMT

MacOS X Leopard on a Gateway tablet (M-285), and it actually works surprisingly well.

Why? I already own a Macbook Pro, and have always found it to be much more useful to me than this Gateway Tablet running Vista. So the better question is, Why not?

This isn't a howto- as it's really pretty easy if you spend some time reading the forums/faqs on the osx86 sites like insanelymac.com, as the hard work of getting MacOS to run on PC hardware has already been done for you.

Then, it's just a matter of taking a few hours to download the latest hacked install DVD from one of the better known torrent sites (try the one you download all your movies from).

The hardware:
A Gateway M-285 Tablet: Intel Core Duo 1.66, 4GB Ram, 80GB Serial ATA Hard Disc, and what Apple would consider to be a "Combo-Drive" (DVD-ROM + CD/RW).

The laptop uses Intel GMA 950 integrated video which is well supported under MacOS.

The only hardware that needed to swap was the Intel B/G Wireless Mini PCI-E card that shipped with the machine. I purchased a Broadcom based card (like that is used in a real Macbook) on Ebay for $9.00 shipped to my door. (Dell model 1490, to be specific.)

Pros:
-It's a Gateway running MacOS X. As well as Windows, and even Linux occasionally - thanks to Parallels.
- Everything that matters works pretty well. "Airport", Gigabit ethernet, audio, and it sleeps/wakes up fine as well.

Cons:
- It's still a Gateway - big, bulky and not much to look at. Lots of goofy LED's and buttons.
- Tablet functionality doesn't work. Had no expectations that it would, and not really upset that it doesn't.
- Steve Jobs may hunt you down and kill you. That's a risk you have to be willing to take, I suppose.