Mac Mini Core 2 Duo with linux

Wotcher all, just thought I'd pass on my experiences with the new mac
mini core 2 duo machine that I've set up.

Boot it, ignore what's on the screen, insert gentoo or ubuntu CD,
reboot holding down left-alt on a USB keyboard until it gives you the
choice of Mac OS on disc or "windows" on CD, select CD and just
install as per usual. I installed Gentoo, trivial to do. So far,
wifi (madwifi driver) is fine, network (sky2 driver) is fine, graphics
card (intel driver) is fine with 3D acceleration, sound driver is fine
(hda-intel) although the volume controls etc could do with updating,
disc (intel ATA driver) is quiet and fast, DVD drive seems fine,
basically everything seems to work very well.

I have no experience with a full ubuntu install, as I only installed
gentoo on it but ubuntu fires up from the live DVD fine. I have no
idea what they're like for running mac os as I've never tried and
don't know how to dual boot them as I've never tried on this machine,
but on the first machine I used standard mac tools to allow me to boot
mac os from an exernal firewire drive to try it out.

It's a small, quick, very quiet and very fast little machine so if
anyone is looking for a machine to install in the lounge then this is
a good bet. I have two in the lounge, one about 4 feet from my ear
inside a wooden arcade cabinet (playing MAME) and another in the open
air about 7 feet from me, and I can't hear either of them running.

With a DVI->HDMI lead it drives my 1080p flat screen well, the only
hack I had to do is to install 915resolution and programme in the
1920x1080 resolution as it's not recognised by X as a valid
resolution. No mode timing hackery is required, just adding in the
resolution into a text file then X just sorts it out and works.

I am also tempted to use them as servers as they eat little power,
take up little space, and with USB being so fast these days they make
a good home server with discs hanging off the back via USB.

One minor hack is that the madwifi driver keeps scanning for other
networks in the background every now and again, that's a driver issue,
and can be stopped by issuing a "bgscan 0" command via iwpriv on the
wireless interface. On a stable home network where it's not going to
be moving from one LAN to another, there's no need for the background
scans to happen, disabling them improves throughput greatly.

Right, that's it, just thought I'd post this in case someone is
searching for a quick and easy home media box that is linux
compatible. I've also got two core duo (not core 2 duo) machines and
they're similarly easy to set up, just not quite as quick.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!
.

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