Well good news, cause as it turns out, the HP Mini 311 makes for one perfect MacBook Air substitute – almost. (Apple fanboys and fangirls, please, for the love of humanity, I’m not contesting the fact that is the superiority of the Mac – real Macs rock the whole universe and beyond). And the procedure is literally a no brainer.


i. What You Need
(1) Download the CD Booter iso image and the Snow Leo 10.6.2 Combo Updater – Burn the iso image onto a blank CD-R (in Windows or Mac or Linux – be sure to use lowest burning speed as precautionary method to avoid a failed write and adding to your growing collection of funky over-sized coasters)

(2) External DVD drive – the LightScribe drive enclosed in a HP logo bedecked black case (that’s equally chic as the Mini 311 itself, let’s admit) will do the job just fine.

A. Install Snow Leopard
(1) Boot up with the project CD – Put in the CD Booter that you’ve just burned a while ago into the external DVD drive. With the DVD drive plugged into one of the Mini 311′s USB ports, power up the machine and press F9 to bring up the boot selection screen. Use the arrow keys to highlight the DVD drive and press Enter.It will take a while for Chameleon to completely load – around 2 minutes – be patient.

(2) Boot into the Snow Leopard Retail Install DVD – Manually eject the CD Booter from the DVD drive and put in its place the Snow Leo DVD. Wait for the drive to load the contents – 10 seconds or so would do – and then press F5 to refresh Chameleon’s boot selection listed in a row. A new entry named “Mac OS X Install DVD” will be added; use arrow keys to highlight it and press Enter to boot into the installer.

I’m referring to a “row” since I didn’t bother wiping out the stock Win 7 partitions which my 311 came with out of the box; the Mac OS X Install DVD entry was added at the far right of the row. Also, the image above shows my list of volumes as they are now – when Mac OS X Snow Leo is already installed in my 311 (the FAT32 drive is supposedly for Win XP)

(3) Install Snow Leopard as you normally would – Format the Mini 311′s drive first as GPT “GUID Partition Table” (Menubar > Utilities > Disk Utility), leaving standard Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as default. I suggest naming the new volume “Macintosh HD” like in real Macs.

GPT because Snow Leopard by default installs only onto hard drives partitioned using that table. MBR could be used but that’s via a custom modded installer which we won’t be covering here. Besides, we’re going Vanilla so we need that 200 MB hidden EFI partition that’s created under GPT. The method used in this guide doesn’t work on MBR.

B. First Boot and EFI (Boot Loader/Environment) Setup
(1) As in the first step when you installed Snow Leopard – “A.(1)” of this guide; boot with the project CD or CD Booter, as I’ve come to call it. (Restart the Mini 311 and press Esc, swap the Snow Leo Install DVD with the CD Booter and hit Ctrl+Alt+Del) This time choose “Macintosh HD” as the volume you want to boot. Or whatever it is you’ve named your installation volume.

(2) After watching the welcome video (no sound at this point, by the way), go through Setup Assistant and configure your user account. As usual, choose “Do not transfer my files” option and “My computer doesn’t connect to the internet” to get to the desktop faster. All that, we’ll deal with later.

(3) Once in your Desktop, if you haven’t unplugged the DVD drive, you’ll see an “HPM311 Darwin Project” disc mounted. Go inside this disc and run the “HPM311 Darwin Project.pkg” installer.

(4) Install updates and support files – (a) go to System Preferences > Security to uncheck “Use secure virtual memory” option and run the MacOSX10.6.2ComboUpdate but DO NOT restart yet cause (b) there’s also an update developed by the HP Mini 311 Darwin Project team from InsanelyMac called HF1 (Hot Fix 1, I believe) which you can install at this point to be done with it. Download and install the HPM311DP_1109HF1 package as well.

As you might have already noticed, the brilliant “HP Mini 311 Darwin Project.pkg” installer has taken care of setting up your boot loader for you – that includes complete configuration of the EFI partition so you need not dabble with Terminal at all.

It’s done, congratulations! You’ve perfect Mini MacBook Air in your hands – well almost perfect Mini MacBook Air.

A forumer at myhpmini.com, “thebubzie” has been kind enough to package for us an installer for Intel Graphics Media Accelerator. It’s been conceived to work on Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard and you can download it here to try it on your own MacBook Mini. No more hunting down those different IntelAppleGMA950 and IntelAppleIntegratedFramebuffer kexts.

Now I’ve come across this whole deal with rebranding Broadcom wifi cards and wondered upto what extent HP’s whitelist of wifi cards go for the 100TU. There are mainly two (2) essential information about your wifi card or any hardware for that matter I believe, that Mac OS X uses to decide how to treat that specific hardware. Apple’s OS is very judgmental and unforgiving at times, racist to be exact:

(1) Subsystem Product ID
(2) Subsystem Vendor ID

I had a question in my head: given that these two are what OS X cares about, I wonder how specific HP is – would it accept the card as long as the Subsystem Product ID remains intact or does it need both to be matching the information on its whitelist?

The answer is IT NEEDS BOTH PIECES OF INFORMATION TO MATCH. If one of that changes, you’ll get this:

“104-Unsupported wireless network device detected. System Halted. Remove device and restart.”

I changed the Subsystem Vendor ID from the stock 0x103c into 0x106b to make it Apple like in a way. Result is I’ve practically bricked my HP Mini 1001TU. I would’ve used what happened as an excuse to get me a new netbook – one of those 11.6 inchers with NVidia Ion – earlier than planned (which is in January next year after the holiday season’s shopping madness here in the Philippines but when promos are still likely to be on).


However, the MSI Wind is here to save the day and saved the day it did:
(1) I popped open the HP Mini 1001TU to extract the now alienated wifi card.
(2) Then I put it in the MSI Wind – I took out its Realtek WiFi card of course.
(3) Booted it up with Ubuntu 9.1 and did prasys’ procedure to revert the Broadcom sprom to the original ID’s:
- Subsystem Product ID : 0×1508
- Subsystem Vendor ID : 0x103c
*I only had to change the Subsystem Vendor ID as the Product ID wasn’t changed before.
(4) I put back the Broadcom card inside the Mini and voilà! My MacBook Mini is its old self again.


Now what’s the point of this whole effort? I learned new stuff (or confirmed old stuff) about the HP Mini 1000:
(1) The upper chassis which houses the built-in trackpad has clips and is secured with adhesive on some parts. Careful in prying it off plus careful again when you put it back – make sure the clip near the left side palm rest is secured first.
(2) There’s another PCI-e slot inside

(3) The WiFi card, while indeed is a Broadcom, is actually a 4312. To be exact, the label on the actual card reads: Broadcom4312 HMG or BRCM94312 – not sure why there’s a “9″ in the alternative appellation. All the while, Mac OS X, both Leopard and Snow Leopard, has always seen it as a 4315. I’ve no idea how that works. I’ve tried omitting 4315 from the AirPortBRCM4311.kext plugin so that 4312 remained, hoping it would be used. But that only caused the OS reporting that no airport card was installed.
(4) The entire motherboard is housed in the palm rest area. The heatsink and the ram slot’s locations contribute a lot why the area feels remarkably toasty. It’s an engineering feat alright; fitting an entire netbook system in that confined space but it’s still undeniable that the Mini’s one hot machine – and that’s literally speaking.

Conclusion? I have serious doubts as to whether I’m gonna hackintosh an HP Mini 311 which in turn gives me more doubts as to whether I’m gonna stick with HP when I upgrade to a higher level netbook next year – I can’t live without OS X, or rather, I don’t reckon I can tolerate a non OSx86-ified netbook among my small collection. Cause come to think of it, there’s already this compatibility issue with OS X alone and HP’s adding to the equation another compatibility issue with its restrictive, not to mention imbecile, whitelists.

But then HP’s netbooks remain on top niche for very good build quality.

P.S. My dear MSI Wind, though I’m extremely grateful to you for salvaging my alienated Broadcom wifi card, the undeniable truth still prevails: your chassis is chancy, your hinges feel flimsy, and your keyboard flexes with keys that are no thicker than an average party plastic cup.

Meanwhile, enjoy the HP Mini 1001TU’s porn pics:

image from mecambiomac.com

UPDATE: I’ve updated the “HP Mini Snow” folder download It’s now a bit easier and noob-friendly

UPDATE 2: I’ve uploaded a new version of the “HP Mini Snow” folder that fixes a bug where it won’t install a DSDT by default.

UPDATE 3: I know, too many updates. But I just had to say this. I’ve updated “Part 4″ to make it work with 2-Step, and make it a lot simpler.

Here we are. I’m sorry this has taken this long, but I’m finally releasing the “2-Step” EFI/100% Vanilla script. Check it out. Basically, after you do the actual Snow Leopard installation, you usually have to type in a bunch of cumbersome, confusing, and easy-to-screw-up commands. Now, all you have to do is download a file, move it, and drag it into terminal. After that there’s only one thing, and it’ll just walk you through that. Trust me, it’s a lot simpler. I’ve been working on it to make it as good as possible, so if you have an comments, criticisms, suggestions, or ideas, feel free to comment. Thanks to LeMaurien19 for proving the kexts, testing the script, and giving some great support. I could never have done this without her. Thanks to the people wo wrote the kexts, including the people who modified the kexts afterwards. They provide indispensable things for us. And, of course, thanks to everyone in the OSx86 community. Good luck!

PS: Sorry if this is really poorly written; I’m writing this at 1:35 AM. I’m going to get some sleep now…

But wondrous as it may be, there’s still one tiny detail it can’t quite do for my HP Mini 1001TU: the internal mic is still useless.

Good thing it’s Christmas already and so as geeky as I am, electronics wormed its way into my gift shopping list. Thus I ended up swiping my new credit card at the nearby Apple reseller store and got myself in pretext for an early Yuletide present for myself (or one of a number of presents I plan to gift myself with – I could be Ebenezer Scrooge’s kin for all I know and for my utter “me, myself and I” lovin’), an Apple iPhone 3G set of earbuds!

I’ve been reading for a long while in forums that it should work with the HP Mini under Mac OS X but I didn’t know for sure but now I know. And I’m a believer.

Its mic works well with the HP Mini 1001TU; I only have to plug it into the port and voilà, I’ve got mic and am ready to Skype!

You’d need to go to System Preferences > Sound > Input tab to set the mic’s volume and then you’re good to go.

Sound quality is very decent, just as is expected of Apple hardware. As for performance, the current VoodooHDA.kext is sufficient. I don’t crank up the mic’s volume to max levels, highest I’d recommend would be one notch before the last notch on the slider bar. Anything beyond that creates static which causes buzzes and echoes in your ear as the mic catches sound. Audio file  resulting from recording via QuickTime X doesn’t seem to register the aforementioned buzzes and echoes when played later on tho.

Also, upon resuming from sleep, the mic won’t work – not really “not work” but you have to go back to Sys Pref > Sound > Input tab > and move the volume slider a bit to get back on track.

The volume (+,-) controller doesn’t allow you set volume up or down, of course (it would’ve been too perfect – even older iPods can’t take advantage of this set of controls; only the newer iPods and iPhone can)

Oh and by the way, this is the VoodooHDA.kext that I use – it allows me to adjust volume via volume control on the menubar or the fn+Function toggle keys. Or you may use the official VoodooLabs release of VoodooHDA.kext so you get a prefPane and experiment with more settings to suit your tastes.

Happy happy day it is! We no longer have to make do with the beta developer trial version of this miraculous browser!
Google Chrome is what I’ve been using on my PC at work since it was released (PC version) because it’s fast, fast, and fast.
What can I say? It’s fast!
(One gets really overwhelmed by its speed in rendering web pages, forgetting everything else)
Grab Google Chrome beta now!
- Chrome download page -

I decided to skip SMC version 1.23f20 and checked Apple’s website for the latest available SMC Firmware update and here’s what I found:

The latest SMC version for the MBA is 1.34f8.

So off I go to edit fakesmc.kext’s Info.plist (right click on the kext file to show “Package contents” then dig inside the “Contents” folder in the resulting window). I used Plist Edit Pro as suggested by prasys.
Why use Plist Edit Pro when we’ve been editing plists in regular TextEdit or Apple’s own Plist Editor app that you get when you install the Mac OS X Developer Tools?

Well, it appears that we can’t just type in 1.334f8 as value for the data string for the REV key; it needs to be converted to an alpha value (I don’t know what it’s called really). To better illustrate, see image below:

Actually, there are two conversions going on here:
(1) “1.34f8” is input as “01340F00<space>0008“
(2) and ”01340F00<space>0008” is converted finally to “ATQPAAAI“

If you don’t wanna edit your own fakesmc.kext, you can download mine here. It’s based from FakeSMC version 2.5 by netkas.

Also, notice that I put the bolean value to “NO” for debug mode. Some say it contributes to better start up times but in my case, I didn’t experience any drastic improvements in start up excepting for not seeing anymore the error message “key not found“which is a welcome change in verbose mode.

Install to /Extra/GeneralExtensions or /Extra/Extensions (which ever you have) and after restarting, you should be able to verify that the correct SMC version is shown in System Profiler:

Also I didn’t realize how important FakeSMC.kext is for hackintoshes or plain SMC for real Macs:

“As we all do know that netkas has released the latest version of FakeSMC which adds temperature sensors , that allows applications such as iStat to get CPU temperature and to do display it. It kinda makes it one step to the real thing.“

EDIT: I’m using EvOReboot.kext with OSXRestart.kext, so far no kernel panics.

Well now, thanks to Master Chief from the insanelymac forums, my MacBook Mini restarts even after it’s been put to sleep!! (You can also download OSXRestart.kext from here in case you’re not registered at insanelymac – which you should be)

Poor Mr. VoodooPS2.

Recently my EFI section went wrong,

So I had to do something to make it strong.

I had to redo that partition,

Mucking with plists and permission.

Everything worked except for sleep,

Which just  made me want to weep.

I tried everything possible to get it back,

But nothing would get the mini back on track.

So I though I’d just redo the EFI partition,

Hoping it’d bring it back to working condition.

I did it, but to no avail,

All I could say was: fail.

So then I looked at this useful forum thread,

So the mini could go back to the life it led.

I then uninstalled faithful old ApplePS2,

Which was not an easy thing to do.

I then installed the VoodooPS2 kext,

I dreaded to see what would happen next.

I crossed my fingers and turned shut down the netbook,

I hoped it’d work, I didn’t want to waste the effort it took.

I turned it on and all was well,

VoodooPS2 was really quite swell.

The trackpad’s prefs did need to be reset,

But that’s no biggie- no reason to fret.

I then closed the lid hoping all would be fine,

I saw the lid go down, and the LEDs shine,

I heard it make that tiny little “pop-pop” sound a couple of times,

But I opened the lid and it worked like a charm (I’m running out of rhymes!)

Sleep has some problems, but it’s hard to explain,

So I’ll post a video, no need to hear me complain.

Thanks for reading this whole thing, I really do appreceate that,

I don’t know why I wrote it like this, I’ll just stop and take a nap.

PS: I’m fully aware of how much I suck at writing poems or anything that rhymes.

Right. That’s the HP VGA Adapter cable for the Mini 1000 and Vivian Tam series. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware or computer accessory. From the rubber finish, to the silver printed HP logo it shows the company accords ample attention to detail and customer satisfaction. In the spirit of Hackintoshing and aspiring to be Apple-like, I can even say the cable reminds me of my Apple iPod’s cable – sans the fancy plastic pin cap and stark white coloring of course. In short, it seems to be a sturdy piece of accessory that’ll last or perhaps even outlast, your HP Mini 1000′s life cycle.

But I just wish it weren’t so hard to get – I practically waited months before I found someone selling this where I am. It should’ve been just included either by force (like the LiteScribe external DVD writer that comes with the HP Mini 311 sold here) or by option as additional accessory readily available at the very moment of purchase for the customer’s picking.

It works well with OS X – plug ‘n play.
Plug the adapter, silver HP logo up, into the expansion port of the Mini at the left side – it’s the thin slot beside  which resides the mic and headphone uni-jack.
Plug in your monitor’s cable to the other end of the HP VGA adapter.
Go to System Preference > Display > Detect displays
Your monitor should, in most cases, be automatically recognized and OS X will display its available resolutions.