Apple Macbook and Bootcamp, experiences and review
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008Recently I had the pleasure of using a new Macbook with Leopard installed while doing some consultancy work for a customer of Andy’s web. It was a white 13” model at 2.1GHZ and they, upon my advice opted for 2Gb instead of 1GB memory as this little baby had windows approaching!
Such a small thing and yet houses some real power – it is very lite. As with all macbooks since 2006 (ish), under the hood is an Intel dual core processor (Que annoying chimes). Powerful enough to deal with several tasks at once
I was working on this macbook pro for a client, the objective was set it up and install windows XP on it with bootcamp.
For those that have been under a rock or stuck on an island similar to the one featured in ‘Lost’, ever since Apple took this step, I mean logical leap, from PowerPC processor based Macs to Intel based Macs, there was the idea of a Mac dual booting into windows! And, after some well documented and intricate attempts Apple released a beta of an application that does just this - Bootcamp.
Bootcamp its self is now incorporated in Apple’s new incarnation of ‘OS X 10’ Leopard.
You will find the only real major decision is how much space you want for your windows drive
After preparing the Macs drive, you restart the computer… Then you presented with all too familiar windows bios style boot screen. With the XP or Vista CD/DVD in the drive the install starts.
After the, somewhat out dated ‘new features’(As this was Windows XP) articles during the install the system is almost ready. Before you do anything you need to pop the Mac OSX disc in the drive and install the Mac drivers to allow you to use all of the Macs hardware, eg web cam, track pad and keyboard effectively.
Running windows applications is like running them on a pc, the only difference is the keyboard. As there was ‘no spoon’ in a cult movie, there is no delete key(option and backspace works if I recall correctly). This will prove to be a definite learning curve for people used to PC keyboard layouts.
My client has been happy using the Mac as a PC for some time now – I wonder if that is the BIG Steve’s plan he he.
