linux

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.

Until recently, I used tmux occasionally, only if I had to run some experiments on a remote server and later see the results of the execution. Basically, I used it only as a mean to execute commands in the background. If I needed to run several commands on a remote server parallelly, I used to open several terminals, connect each of them to the remote host and then switch between them.

Recently, I started working with a remote server through ssh more often and the routine, I used to, became very operation consuming. So, to improve my effectiveness, I spend several hours reading articles, watching videos and trainings how to use tmux. This article combines the knowledge I have acquired. It is also a crib for me if I forget something in the future.

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.