[ale] Gnome applets

[Scott Castaline]

On 07/26/2009 01:05 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> 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
> :-)
>
Ummm thermistors? I vaguely remember those from the 70's when I went to 
school. They weren't that accurate back then, I would think that they 
are a little better now. Periodically ran into them in products that 
companies I worked for used them, but other groups were involved with 
support of them.