Because Apple didn’t release the Darwin 10.2.0 XNU sources (the kernel in Mac OS X 10.6.2)  yet (as of 11-14-09), there’s no way to re-enable Atom CPU support on the MSI Wind (and other Atom based netbooks) once you update to 10.6.2. I’ve seen some russian bin-hacks (Tea’s kernel) but they don’t work on the Wind, the kernel panics while booting. Once the XNU sources are out it will be pretty easy to compile a modified kernel with Atom CPU support but for the time being, you might as well re-use the kernel that came with your 10.6.0 Snow Leopard installation. So far, I haven’t seen any limitations using the older kernel in 10.6.2.

All you need is the USB stick you initially installed Snow Leopard from and some basic Terminal skills.
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This is not a how-to guide, tutorial or walk-through, I just list the kexts and settings needed to get Snow Leopard 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 up and running on an MSI Wind U100 netbook. Even though I haven’t personally tested it, the kexts should also work in the Wind U100 plus model. Up to OS X 10.6.1 the Atom 270/280 CPUs are natively supported by the Darwin kernel a.k.a. the vanilla kernel. There are rumors that this may change in a later release of OS X. In fact, Apple already seeded an OS X 10.6.2 developer version with Atom support disabled.

Added 11/10/09: Do NOT update to 10.6.2 as Apple deliberately disabled Atom CPU support and your MSI Wind netbook will go into a reboot loop or simply crash! You’ll need a modified kernel to run 10.6.2 or higher on an Atom CPU! If you’re fluent with Terminal, you might as well install the 10.6.2 update and reinstall the old kernel, see this post for more information. I tried it and it works fantastic!

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The simple fact of notebook life is that notebooks simply don’t run as long on their batteries as they should. This is especially true for my MSI Wind U100 netbook. It came with a 3-cell battery that delivers approximately 1,5 to 2 hours of unplugged time. MSI offers a 6-cell battery and an even more powerful 9-cell battery is reportedly in the works. Read more »