Operating System
Articles, notes, and tutorials filed under Operating System.
Install Mac OS X Yosemite using Clover
Clover is a new and exciting open source EFI bootloader. Developed over the past 3 years by a group of developers at Project OS X led by Slice, Clover aims to solve problems inherent in existing OS X installation methods and legacy bootloaders: Boots troublesome desktop and laptop BIOS/UEFI Uses native OS X installation media Ability to patch DSDT/kernel/kexts at boot time Creates OS X Recovery partition No boot0 error with 4K Advanced Format drives Solves multi-boot issues with Linux and Windows 7/8 Solves traditional bootloader NVRAM issues related to iMessage/FaceTime Clover has a completely different system of configuration with a decidedly steep learning curve. It can be confusing for those who have only ever used the more traditional Chameleon or Chimera.
Difference between Process and Thread
Processes and threads are both units of execution managed by the operating system, and they are easy to mix up. The short version: a process is a running instance of a program with its own memory, while a thread is a lighter-weight unit of execution that lives inside a process and shares that memory with its siblings. This post looks at each in turn, then summarizes how the two differ.
Install Google Pinyin in Ubuntu
I had been using Sun Pinyin for a long time, but once I tried Google Pinyin I never looked back. Here is how to get a comfortable Chinese Pinyin setup on Ubuntu. Note: This post has been updated for Fcitx5, the input method framework that ships with current Ubuntu (20.04 and later). The original 2013 version installed the standalone fcitx-googlepinyin package on Fcitx 4 through the fcitx-team PPA. That package is now unmaintained; Fcitx5’s built-in Pinyin engine, paired with the Cloud Pinyin addon, is its modern replacement, and no PPA is needed.
Configure Unity Workspace Layout in Ubuntu
Note: This post describes Unity 7 and Compiz, Ubuntu’s default desktop through Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Canonical ended its work on Unity in 2017, and the default switched to GNOME Shell starting with Ubuntu 17.10 — where workspaces are configured differently and compizconfig-settings-manager no longer applies. The steps below are kept as a historical walkthrough; they still work on the community-maintained Ubuntu Unity flavor. Why change the layout? Every time I upgrade to a new Ubuntu release, the desktop defaults to a 2×2 workspace grid.