After my kernel panic with NetbookInstaller, I pretty much gave up trying to install OS X on my HP Mini 110. I let the netbook sit idle for at least a week. Finally I found some spare time and motivation for this sad project, and I decided to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). This is a lite Linux distro which is supposed to work great on most netbooks with an Atom processor.
The official Ubuntu download page was so badly made that when I tried to download the 1GB (!) "lite" install, the bytes started spilling down my web page as text. This is 2009, not 1999. Really sad. So I managed to use web-page trickery to get the download link and even download it to a file.
The installation image is a file of type ".img". My Mac really didn't know what to do with it. It would open the image as a virtual volume, but not copy it to my SDHC card. I had to (eventually) go to the Darwin/Linux command line and pretty much force it to copy the image to the card. I got several "file name too long" errors using normal volume copying methods. The problem file name was definitely not too long, but it did have a very weird suffix which used characters I have never seen before.
So I finally made what should have been a bootable SDHC card with the UNR installation files on it. And it wouldn't boot.
I tried a couple of different formats for the SDHC card, no dice. You can imagine my frustration.
So I decided I would try to repair the 640x480 resolution Mac OS 10.5.5 which was currently and badly installed on my HP Mini 110. I booted up without the SDHC card to see where I was with Mac OS, and Lo and Behold! It booted up with no issues into the correct resolution (1024 x 576)! I really have no explanation for this. I can't remember adding any kernel extensions after my initial failures, but maybe I did? I really don't know. The GMA950 graphics extension doesn't seem to be present, which is weird because that is my graphics chip for this computer.
Anyway, I am now consistently and smoothly booting into Mac OS 10.5.5. The latest version is 6.1, and 10.5.8 is the final release of the previous version. So I still have some upgrades to do.
My microphone is not working, even though it looks like it should. My ethernet jack is not working. Everything else is working at some level. My speakers work but I don't have any way to control the volume that I can find. Likewise with my screen brightness.
I think there are solutions to these problems, but I will have to go carefully.
Supposedly I can upgrade right to 10.5.8 using a standard Apple upgrade package (which I already downloaded). Before I do that, I want to make sure I copy this version of my OS onto the bootable SDHC card so I can get back to this if the upgrade fails/train wrecks/etc.
I posted this from my HP Mini 110! I'm running Mac OS 10.5.5 and it's really a pleasure. It should only get better from here.