Headless Mac Mini Setup

Yep - thats all you need to do. It'll boot without keyboard etc. I set mine up by plugging it in in place of my main Powermac, set up screen sharing, installed iTunes, disabled bluetooth and wireless (it runs wired). Connected my main Mac back up, plugged the mini in to a spare port on my switch and booted it back up. Ran 'Chicken of the VNC' on the main Mac and there it was. Find the NAS, set core Audio and run up iTunes and its all ready to go.

Mine is set to sleep overnight and if not used for an hour. The remote app for iTunes control wakes it up without any problems.

Good luck

James

Thanks for your reply, James.

However, as I said, I'm rather clueless about booting the Mini using another computer. You said "I set mine up by plugging it in in place of my main Powermac". I'm not sure what you mean - do you mean you used the monitor/keyboard from your PowerMac? Let me reiterate that I do not have a separate monitor (I have an iMac & and MacBook), though I'm wondering if I should invest in a used one, for setting up the Mini.

Is it possible to do the setup sans monitor? I have read that you can boot the Mini from another computer, using the Mini as the boot disk or some such thing. Anyone know about this?

Thanks again,
Russell

Hi Russell

From your description it is possible that you are thinking about Firewire Target Disk Mode?
You can read a short description on the Apple site:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
But... as I understand it, this will only allow you to use the internal disk on your mac mini as if it was an external drive on your iMac or MacBook. Fine for rescuing/moving files, but I doubt if it would be possible to do your setup with this configuration.

Instead of getting hold of a cheap monitor, have you considered using a tv set as your monitor? A lot of newer lcd sets have a standard computer input on the back, or alternatively apple sell various adapters for hdmi or old school s-video. Check carefully first to see what you need (Apple used to supply some of these adapters as standard with a new mac mini, for example) because once you add up the cost of all the adapters and cables you can end up spending more than you would for a second hand monitor! Also be warned that tv monitor quality varies from being absolutely brilliant with a 32" lcd to eye wateringly dreadful via s-video to an old 13" portable. Obviously you won't need to look at it for too long when you have screen sharing, VNC or remote desktop working.

Once you have done your setup, you can remove the monitor cable and run your mini headless. However the screen resolution will revert to a default if the mac starts up with no monitor connected. On my G4 mini this is 1024x768, which is fine, but I know older macs revert to 640x480 which would be a right pain (it's barely big enough for the system preferences window, let along iTunes). Leaving a monitor adapter connected, even without a monitor on the end of it, will often help fool the mac into thinking that nothing has changed so it won't revert to default settings. I'd still recommend having some kind of screen, whether it be tv or monitor, that you can easily connect up for troubleshooting purposes.

Thanks for your comments, souptin. Yes, I was talking about booting the Mini connected to the MacBook via Firewire. Didn't have the actual terminology. But if I can't set Preferences on the Mini this way, it's useless.

Thanks for the TV suggestion, I hadn't considered that. I'll definitely check that out.

Russell

Thanks again, Souptin for your TV-as-monitor suggestion, which somehow I had overlooked. This worked perfectly, once I figured out which HDMI input on the TV to use and convinced the Mini to pair with my wireless mouse & keyboard (borrowed from my iMac) - which actually cost a good bit more time and frustration than I'd like to admit.

(Although I was hooking up to the TV for my initial headless setup only, the display looked absolutely gorgeous on my Sony 32" XBR, and I'm tempted to hook it up again, but I really don't have much use for it, since I'm planning on relying on iPhone remote & screen sharing with my Mac Book for control purposes.)

And I'm happy to report that after I got past this stumbling block, everything went quite smoothly - I turned the Mini screen sharing on and sleep mode off, unplugged from my Sony, paired my keyboard and mouse back to my iMac, rebooted the Mini, and Voila! I was able to control the Mini with my Mac Book or use Remote for playing iTunes. I am now completely headless!

Thanks all for your input, this was actually easier (and cheaper - $30 for a Belkin DVI-to-HDMI cable - probably could have gotten one even cheaper, but hey, that's the Apple Store for ya) than I thought. And I have to echo the words of others on this forum - the Mini seems like a wonderful machine - small, fast, quiet, cool-running, reliable, inexpensive, and I have to say - cute!

Now all I have to do is get me a decent sound system!

Gracias,
Russell

The Mac Mini without monitor or keyboard is easy to control from any computer on the network, as long as the Mini has Screen Sharing enabled and Sleep turned off (both in System Prefs) and is connected to the network by ethernet or wifi. No other setup or software is required. It will boot without a keyboard / screen. To control the Mini, just select it in the left column of the Finder on the other machine, and take over the screen. In addition, you can control iTunes from anywhere in the house with the Remote app on an iPhone or iPod Touch. In the Mini's Security preferences I lock System Prefs so only an Administrator can change them, and also run the Mini using a non-Administrator account, with good password security on the wifi network (to prevent the always-on Mini from becoming a back door into the home network).

What I don't like is not being able to control more of the headless Mini, for example when I need to change the Audio Midi setting from 44KHz to 96KHz. Apple really needs to integrate Audio Midi and iTunes so that sample rate changes are automatic. Also, I would like better access to the Mini so I can occasionally use Spotify Premium (at its "high bit rate" setting it sounds surprisingly good) or Pandora. I would also like to be able to make high res purchases direct to the Mini. These things can be done using Screen Sharing, but that means keeping a laptop in the room.

To enjoy the full flexibility promised by a computer audio source---but still maximize sound quality---the equipment overhead gets high. From a one-box CD player before, now I have a five-box player: Ayre DAC, modded Mini running iTunes / PureVinyl (and the SSD mod was expensive), CalDigit RAID drive for the iTunes library, iPod Touch remote, plus occasional laptop. I tried a MacBook Pro for in place of the Mini / CalDigit / Touch-laptop and of course it worked fine, but to get decent sound the MacBook must be connected by wire to the DAC, which means it must be physically close to the system. The laptop is not musically optimal anyway because it has a noisy spinning hard drive and lots of other RAM activity going on.

The main reasons to choose a computer source are: (1) sound quality (access to super high-res formats), (2) playback convenience via iTunes or some other player, and (3) flexibility / choice. You can play all formats and resolutions, you can access the music with ease, and you can even add to the collection by downloading / burning, or expand it by streaming from something like Spotify Premium. In short, the (expensive) computer should be more than a dumb platform for iTunes or Amarra, and therefore the listener needs to be able to see the screen and open / close applications at will.

Maybe the iPad with redesigned Remote App will be a full-featured remote, although I will still have 4-box solution versus my old 1-box player.

iPad that is it!

I was going to buy a macbook pro to use as a home laptop (mostly for entertainment, work is with the company pc laptop) and as audio transport/music storage, but waited for the ipad presentation and then it was clear to me, the perfect solution (for my case) is definitely ipad+mini.

for simple tasks, within it's capabilities, the ipad is better at all it does than the macbook, and for music server, a minimalist desktop is perfect, much better than a laptop you carry, plug and unplug from the DAC.

if the ipad runs the remote app (and hopefully with more browsing capabilities) then it's going to be great. But not all is simple, and the perfect solution would be to have screen sharing with the mini... i'm sure someone will develop it and then you will be carrying only the ipad (in reality is a screen, keyboard and mouse) and leave the cpu and harddrives anywhere else.

I'm really looking forward to this.

cheers

Hi neovibe - The more I think about the iPad the more I like it as a remote control. I looked at some of the Philips Pronto remotes the other night and the cost (up to $1500) was outrageous compared to an iPad.

I will certainly check out the Jaadu application for screen sharing / VNC access to my Mac once I have the iPad.

The application "RemoteTap" is excellent for controlling a headless Mac mini with an iPod touch. It should be even better with the ipad larger screen. Worth checking out.

If you've got a TV in your listening room and you have a Macbook then Teleport is a very cool solution:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22339
http://abyssoft.com/software/teleport/ - Developer site, but down this sec..

Basically you don't need a keyboard and mouse hooked up to the mini, all you do is flick your mouse cursor from your Macbook off a configurable portion of the laptop screen. At that point the cursor will 'teleport' over to the mac mini, and your Macbook keyboard and mouse now have 100% control of the mini (including all special function keys). It also lets you drag and drop files from one machine to another, which is a great bonus feature.

Hi there, I stumbled on this post a bit too late, it seems, but wanted to comment on the use of Target Disk Mode to set up the Mac Mini. If the mini is plugged in to power, has a keyboard (temporarily) plugged into it, and is turned on while you hold the "t" key (for about 10-15 seconds after the chime), then the mini will start up in Target Disk Mode. Next, connect the mini to another Mac (iMac, for example) via a FireWire cable. While starting up the iMac, hold the "option" (or "alt") key, and you will be presented with a listing of available startup drives from which you can boot the iMac. Simply select the orange FireWire drive to the right and press enter/return.

I'm a Mac Genius at an Apple store and we use this nice trick all the time to let people start their computers that have damaged displays or for other reasons.

Chris