Intel Mac Mini (2006)

2006 1.83GHz Intel Mac Mini

The G4 Mac Mini was my first personal Mac¹. I got one in 2005 while at college at Georgia Tech. That's when I really got Mac-pilled. I had primarily used Windows computers I built up until then. This was the first time I was really using a Mac for my own purposes.

I have fond memories of that G4 Mac Mini. I used it in my Georgia Tech dorm to host this very website during its early WordPress days 20 years ago. I eventually sold that Mac Mini and got a MacBook before getting the Intel Mac Mini shortly after it came out.

This wasn't that same Mac Mini, but I found it on eBay for less than $50 and decided to buy it. I quickly upgraded the RAM to 2GB and added an SSD. Of course, it's a rather old machine so aside from nostalgia, there's not much you can realistically do with the highest supported OS (10.6 Snow Leopard). It's no longer a secure and supported operating system, so you wouldn't want to use it for anything important. And besides, using it as a file server is slow, even with these upgrades.

Setting up the new parts and OS

I ended up installing rEFInd so dual-boot Linux and OS X. I went with the lightweight Linux Mint Xfce distribution. That being said, I don't use it and it's mostly just a piece of nostalgia now. I think my Raspberry Pi 5 is substantially faster.