configuration

As you may know, I am a long user of an Ubuntu-flavored operating system (Kubuntu). So as I need a stable system, I usually stick with the Long Term Support (LTS) releases. Currently, my laptop runs Kubuntu 20.04.

At my new working place, people actively use calendar/email facilities. Hence, I have to start using an email client that supports this functionality. Our IT support recommends using Thunderbird, and I followed their advice. As usual in Linux distros, I have installed a Thunderbird version using my package manager and configured my email client according to the recommendations.

However, after I started to use it, I have faced issues in calendar functionality (e.g., its inability to synchronize event data) that were very difficult to triage. I checked some forums looking for explanations of some particular error codes and how to resolve them. There, I discovered that the calendar sub-system was improved considerably in Thunderbird 91.0. I checked my version of Thunderbird, and it was 78.13.x. After I found that, I decided to update Thunderbird. However, at that time, I did not manage to find a Personal Package Archive (PPA) or a deb file with this newer version. Therefore, I decided to wait until a new Ubuntu version (21.10) would be released because I thought it might bring Thunderbird 91. Unfortunately, this did not happen for older releases, and I decided to install Thunderbird 91 manually. In this article, I describe how I updated Thunderbird from version 78 to 91.

Several weeks ago during a compilation process, I noticed that my laptop became very hot under my palms. At first, I did not pay any attention to this, however, when it became uncomfortable to work I started to worry. My first thought was that the laptop got dusted and cannot remove the heat effectively. But then I noticed that I did not hear the fan noise when the load on the CPU increases, and I decided that my cooler is either broken or blocked. I was almost about to start disassembling my laptop, but luckily I decided to check the temperature using Linux utilities. There I found out that, despite I feel the laptop being hot, the sensor [thinkpad-isa-0000 -> temp1] showed that the CPU temperature was normal (showing all the time the temperature of 45°C). This looked suspicious, and I checked other sensors measurements and found out that the [coretemp-isa-0000] sensors showed more correct temperature values, which in addition reacted on load increase. In this article, I want to describe, how I forced my system to react also on the values from these additional sensors and cooled down my laptop.

I like Python. For the last several years, I have used it extensively in my research. There are a lot of useful libraries, and it is an equally powerful language for writing simple scripts, producing large systems, doing data analysis and machine learning. It is very laconic and allows you to use different programming paradigms. It is quite easy to start developing in Python: modern operating systems are either already supplied with a Python interpreter or provide you with an easy way to install it. However, when you start developing more professionally using this language, you discover that its ecosystem is quite complicated. In this article, I try to shed a bit more light on the topic how to configure Python workspace.

From time to time, I experiment with different tools. In order to have the same environment and to keep my working machine clean from the garbage left after such experiments, I do my investigations in a virtualized environment. Usually, my guest operating system (OS) is Ubuntu Server because I usually use this OS in the cloud. Thus, to completely resemble my experience in the cloud I should have terminal access to the guest operating system. Unfortunately, by default after you have installed a guest virtual machine (VM) you do not have network access to it. Therefore, in this article I will show how to configure VirtualBox and guest OSes so that you get access to your virtual machines from the host, e.g., through terminal.