First off, I'm going with the "generic DVD install."

To dual-boot with WinXP, the Dell BIOS supports boot selections by hitting F12 at the Dell logo. Unfortunately Darwin/x86 doesn't seem to like being on primary slave, so you'll have to make it your primary master drive and put WinXP in primary slave. Of course, this means if you forget to hit F12 you won't log into WinXP by default.

Once everything was installed, the network was picked up by default. I also have a Firewire card installed -- not sure what type -- but it picks up a FireWire HD just fine. DVD and CD drive works (as well as DVD playback). The only thing that doesn't work is sound...and after a frustrating bit of work I discovered how to make the onboard sound function.

First off, if you don't have the AppleAC97Audio.kext file in /System/Library/Extensions/, you'll need to get it from post #5 at http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=4645. Then follow the instructions in the following post for loading the kext from Terminal. This loads the extension, but you'll notice that sound still doesn't work.

So, what's wrong? You need to change the number of audio channels. Go to Applications --> Utilities and click on Audio MIDI Setup. Under Audio Devices change the AC97 Audio selection under "Properties For:" until you get settings for the output. Then change the format to 4ch-16bit, click Configure Speakers, and change the channels from 1 and 2 to channels 3 and 4. Now you will have audio!

I used to have a Mac back in the PowerMac days (good old Centris 6xx...) but after playing around with OSX86 I really want to get a new Mac, with Final Cut Pro and everything. All I can do for now is dream...