[ale] Gnome applets

[Jim Kinney]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Matt Rideout<mrideout at windserve.com> wrote:

> The sensors_detect command (which comes with lm_sensors) may be what
> you're looking for. Use with caution on production systems. :)

Unless you have a well known chipset AND the data for your board is in
the setup you will still need to tweak the .conf file.

That file contains the scaling factors needed to convert (mostly)
non-linear voltage measurements into a meaningful temperature. Some
board/chipset makers provide that data (Tyan does and I'm pretty sure
SuperMicro does on server boards - IBM, Sell, HP do on their server
systems).

 As if calibrating that data isn't hard enough, as the sensors age
they tend to drift a bit. so a voltage of .0157 V which _used_ to mean
a temp of 95F now means 135F. Or worse.

Thermistors are a PIA. Measuring current/voltage variance across a
transistor junction and equating that  to a temperature works as long
as the power to the transistor is stable and the device physics are
very well known. (guess what else I got to tinker with in grad school
:-)

-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness