The mini has evolved greatly since that day. I think it was intended as a cheap desktop replacement to help switchers but has now evolved to be used as a capable server for small and medium sized companies. There are even many companies that use it as there internet presence (I know as I helped a few of them setting it up). Read this blog post at the Macminiolo blog for the increase in performance in these 7 years.

The mini is used for many things, as embedded computer, media player, in-car entertainment system and many more. Just try some google queries. This one is awesome, only not for home use: a 48U rack enclosure to hold 140 mini’s.

The predecessor of this site switch.richard5.net was started a little later as my first Mac mini was bought a few months after the introduction with a 23″ Cinema Display. I started using it as my main machine at home after long exposure to Linux and Windows, it was my first Mac after admiring them from a distance.

I’ve since bought five mini’s and still have 3. A G4 for testing PowerPC Leopard installs, an intel one for testing Snow Leapard and Lion and the last one is located at Macminicolo.net and serving amongst others this site. My current main desktop is an 27″iMac and for sentimental reasons I recently even bought a PowerMac G5. I loved the case and this one was without a scratch, additional this was the first model that was sold using water-cooled CPU’s.

You can have a preview of the MAMP setup and the mail server instructions.

When this all is finished I will start rewriting the Leopard instructions and will keep including the PowerPC instructions. To help me test the 64 bits instruction, which wasn’t possible on my old G4 mini, I’ve become the proud owner of a PowerMac G5 2,5 GHz dual processor unit. It’s a beauty in almost mint condition. I always wanted one of these aluminum “cheese graters” and got the opportunity to buy this one for a nice price. I really like this model as this is the first consumer computer that came with water-cooled processors. It’s nice to own a bit of computing history that looks this nice.

There is too much on the todo list, there are items on there longer then a year, and it only keeps growing. Even keeping up with all the developments in the existing setup is hard. I’ve got a lot of ideas of how to expand the site with more information like how to install iCal or AddressBook server.

So I’m looking for people who are willing to help to do research, write documentation and test installation guides. Qualifications are simple:

• you know your way around the terminal
• you are not afraid to compile stuff
• you know how to find answers to your questions
• you are able to write complex instructions in a simple understandable manner
• you are willing to help other people getting things done

What I have to offer is my eternal gratitude (and you’ll receive it from other people as well) and respect.

If you are interested let me know, by commenting on the blog or sending me an email.

PS. Don’t worry, I won’t stop with the site it’s too important for me but I want to keep up the quality and really make it work for you.

Now I’ve got my production server running Dovecot (finally) and can tell you that it really rocks and I performed the upgrade without any problem. Just configure, compile and install as per instructions and then kill the current running dovecot process. The new version should start automatically.

Just an small remark, just saw in my WordPress dashboard before posting this, that I’ve passed the 200 blogposts on this blog. That is excluding the 134 pages (the actual documentation) and the 920 comments (which I tend to prune every now and then to keep them relevant).

Here is nice one for the people wh recently bought a mini, someone found out that it will take 8 Gb of usable memory just like the newer MBP’s. It’s a shame that it still soooo expensive but it is a good thing to look forward to. I’m almost temped to by another mini just to see how this would perform. I think it would make a awesome server, although I must confess that of my current production server only half of it’s 1Gb is in active use.

For people looking to host a server at MacMiniColo.net, they have some second hand mini’s listed on the sign up page which will do the job perfectly for less money. I did this myself as well and it is stil working. I like their service so much I recently renewed for a two year period.

Back to testing…

Update: Forgot to mention that I’ve finished installing everything on a clean install of Snow Leopard. So that now works as it is supposed to do. Next up getting my mini ready for the update and installing everything in 32 bits.

Postfix has released a new version 2.6.5 as well. Usually they are installable without problems so feel free to update and I will test is soon!

Sorry about this!

Some of the reasons for choosing a laptop were:

• The ability to take it with me. More people are depending on my support for their server (yes I offer paid support on a best effort basis) and being away from home without a Mac is making it difficult.
• The option to use it for my day job and to drop the ugly Dell laptop I got from my employer. You’ve got to admit the new unibodies are drop dead gorgeous.
• It’s gorgeous!
• I think the 2 GPU’s are going to give me an advantage when Snow Leopard will be able to utilize them with the OpenCL stuff. This should mean I can keep using the new laptop for quite some time without it getting old and slow.

I wanted to to thank all the people who donated money, it’s been used to help me buy the laptop.

Here is a picture of the new laptop on my desk at home. Still installing and configuring the basic stuff before installing a new version of DIYMacServer. Enjoy.

PS. Just found out my old G4 mini got a problem. Probably a faulty hard drive…

I’m looking forward to a new Mac mini or any new Mac on my desktop.

If you have any wishes for the new year related to the content on this site please let me know perhaps I can make them come true. So what to add or what subject to cover anything goes as long as it falls within the boundaries of my abilities.

Why do I tell you this, because I paid for the drive partly with some of the money I got from the donations I received from some happy users. As this mini is used to test everything first I thought it was appropriate.

Next target for the donations is getting a new Mac (I hope for a new mini), I need it to be able to support you who want to compile everything in 64 bits mode. My current mini’s don’t support 64 bit. I’ve got one of the early Intel mini’s also paid for partly by donations in September 2006! (Boy does time pass quickly when you have fun)

Currently I can only support Tiger and Leopard on G4 and Intel 32 bits machines. Planning for the future I would like to support 64 bits Intel machines as well. As soon as Snow Leopard comes out the plan is to drop support for Tiger so from then on I will support Leopard on G4/G5 and Intel (32 and 64 bit) and Snow Leopard on Intel (32 and 64 bit).

I hope you agree with this decision as it is impossible to support every combination. I know some of you still use Tiger on older Macs and are unable to upgrade. Please know that I’ll try to help you to the best of my ability even if you are not using one of the supported combinations.