After over 5 years, I finally said goodbye to my very first Intel Apple computer. Up to this day, my former 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo Mac Mini was and still is a rock solid machine. With a stock 60 GB 5400 rpm drive and a shocking 512MB of RAM, the Mac Mini was my first modern Mac experience, since in the past my only Apple computer experience was using the Macintosh Classic or Macintosh Plus. Since at the time I didn’t knew crap about computers, but I definitively remember using a keyboarding/typing program and a Wheel of Fortune game. Shortly after buying the Mac Mini, I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and to a 500 GB 5400 rpm hard drive and most importantly installed CentOS on it, then it was no turning back. For the last 4+ years, the Mac Mini has been my local LAMP and file server. I had absolute zero issues with the computer functioning as a server and I estimate having the Mac Mini powered on for almost 2 years straight. However, the Mini was not powerful enough to run virtual machines smoothly. I tried using QEMU/XEN, but the computer completed choked. Although this was not the reason why I got rid of the computer, it was definitely a big limitation on it, since I didn’t want to build a big, noise custom PC to use as a hypervisor; I loved the absolute quietness of a Mac Mini. The final axed on getting rid off my Mac Mini was the fact that my little niece and nephews’ PC was an absolute piece of crap. I flat out got sick of supporting their really old PC, so instead of fixing their computer for the 20th time, I gave them my Mac Mini. An old Intel Mac Mini combined with Snow Leopard, in my opinion is the best solution for any elementary and middle school student that needs a reliable and stable computer.

Now, I’m planning on buying the latest Mac Mini model (2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, at the time of the writing) and planning on turning it into a hypervisor, using VirtualBox.