Hackintosh: Mac OS X on Samsung NC10

I originally bought my samsung NC10 to install Ubuntu Linux. It works well, but the darkness of the screen was really bugging me. So, being a Mac user I decided to install Mac OS X on it. Here is what I did and what you should know.

What does not work out of the box :

Wifi. But don’t worry, you’ll find several cheap compatible express card on Ebay. As an exemple I bought a Dell DW 1390 b/g WLAN Mini-PCI Express Card for less than $12. I heard the 1490 also works. See below for more information.

Apple Remote to control Front Row, but does it really matter ?

Sleep mode when the netbook is plugged in. Works great on battery though.

Where to start :

First off you’ll need a special ISO (image disk) of Mac OS X as well as a bunch of drivers.

ISO: You will find links to download the ISO HERE. There are 20 or so files to decompress to create the ISO. Download those files but do not unrar them yet.

Drivers:  head over HERE to get all the correct drivers for the Samsung NC10.

How to proceed:

Tutorial: There is a great tutorial with just screen captures guiding step-by-step (I mean, really!) through the whole process. It’s a PDF file available HERE.

Basically the Samsung NC10 comes with a 160 GB hard drive with WIndows XP preinstalled on it. Depending on the size you want to allocate to Mac OS X, you may need to get an external USB DVD drive. As an example I reinstalled XP on a 50GB partition, leaving me 100+ GB for OS X. The whole tutorial guides you through XP. You’ll start by partitioning the unallocated space. In this tutorial they advise two OSX partition (OSX1 and OSX2). In the end you’ll realize that you do not need OSX2 but they explain at the end that it is for Time Machine backups… well I just use it to dump my Dropbox.

Once XP reinstalled, you may unrar the ISO file in C:/ and copy the drivers on a USB key.

Upgrading to 10.5.7

Before upgrading to 10.5.7, the latest version of Mac OS X to date, be sure to download THE FIX that was specifically made for the Samsung NC10. Download the official update from Apple’s website. Install it but do not restart the system. Install the fix and then restart the machine. It’s gonna boot twice.

Changing the Wifi card

The process is pretty simple. You’ll find a complete tutorial HERE. Wifi is gonna work instantly when rebooting. On Windows the system will find and install a driver by itself.

When you have everything ready, the whole thing is pretty easy with this tutorial. I find OS X to be quite good on a netbook. Minimalist desktop users like me will find the dock especially useful to launch a software on a netbook compared to the XP start menu. Have fun!

Published 2 weeks ago | [Samsung] | [NC10] | [MAC] | [OSX] | [Hackintosh]