MacBook

Recently, a friend of mine was interested in upgrading their Intel Macbook1,1 (early 2006) and installing Snow Leopard. At first I thought an upgrade to Snow Leopard was a bit ambitious, but I was surprised that it ended up working quite well and was easy to do.

The Macbook1,1 was the very first Intel MacBook to be released. Previously, Apple had been using the PPC architecture in their iBook line of notebooks. So, if you have any MacBook – you can run Snow Leopard and you can run it well.

You can check out the base specs for all MacBooks on the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook

To find one which one you have, click the top left menu -> About This Mac -> More Info…. You should see a Model Identifier on the page that opens.

Choosing the hardware upgrades

OK… So, certainly my friend had to make a couple hardware upgrades before attempting to put Snow Leopard on his MacBook1,1. The stock 2 x 256mb RAM was replaced with 2 x 1gb DDR2 667MHz SO-DIMMs and the stock 60GB (5400 RPM) hard drive was upgraded to a nicer 250GB (7200 RPM) drive. If you are looking to upgrade – I suggest not looking for anything with the “Apple seal of approval” because it will just cost more for the same thing you get without it. It is likely that any 2.5″ hard drive will do… I highly suggest going with Western Digital or Seagate (about $60 for a 320gb 2.5″ drive). As for RAM, check your local computer shop or online (here or here)… You should be able to get 2 x 1gb sticks for about $60CDN or 2 x 2GB sticks for about $100CDN (give or take). You will need to find out what RAM speed you need to get as well (667MHz or 800MHz) – however, if you currently have 667MHz RAM and you can get cheaper 800MHz RAM, it’s ok… the new RAM will just run at 667MHz with no issues (the computer I am using is doing this). In the same way you found your Model Identifier (above) you can navigate on the side-pane to find out more information on the RAM currently in your laptop. Use the wikipedia page to find out the maximum RAM for you system as well.

One more thing – every MacBook has two RAM slots. It is most efficient for you to have two of the same type and size RAM sticks in these slots so that dual-channel memory is enabled (makes RAM read/write faster). So, try to upgrade in pairs of the same size. However, it’s not going to be adversely bad if you put one 2GB stick in there…

Installing the new hardware

Installing new RAM is easy with a MacBook… Refer to Apple’s guide for your particular model. From experience, I have found that installing RAM on the “Black and White” MacBooks (ones where you start by removing the battery) is really easy – BUT, just make sure that when you’re inserting the new sticks that you push REALLY HARD until you feel it move into the slot. I felt like I was going to break it, but after a good push it moved in the extra 3-4mm and the bracket and battery could be put back into place.

If you’re just upgrading the RAM, you’re done. Just boot up your computer and check “About This Mac” for an update on memory size.

If you’re hoping to insert a new hard drive, the physical installation is easy – but what about your operating system and your stuff??

PART 2 will give details on making the hard drive switch and setting up Snow Leopard

The AWN package provides a OSX-like dock with some neat customizations.

My dock:

To install AWN:

1) Open System -> Administration -> Software sources.

2) Ensure that “Recommended updates (karmic updates)” is checked on the “Updates” tab.

3) Move to the “Other software” tab and click add — add “http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ppa/ubuntu”, without the quotes.

4) Close (you may be asked to update something. do that).

5) Open Synaptic Package Manager and search for awn.

6) Search for “avant-window-navigator-trunk” and install this package, along with the dependencies.

7) You can start the dock from the Applications -> Accessories menu and the settings are found in the System -> Preferences menu.

It’s pretty easy to configure. I may end up posting a few screen shots on how to add launchers, etc.

Some of my interests are:

Ubuntu, OSX, C++, Python, computer hardware, apple products, chemistry, physics, math…

I’ve never had a blog before, so it may take some time for me to get used to this. Annnyyyyway… Thanks for reading.

–p