Taking your hardware's temperature - Beat the Heat
Linux Magazine|#261/August 2022
With lm-sensors, you can monitor your hardware’s internal temperature to avoid overheating.
Bruce Byfield
Taking your hardware's temperature - Beat the Heat

Hardware temperatures have long been the concern of sys-tem administrators and server farms. However, with summer and the recent record temperatures worldwide, excess heat inside a computer case has become every user’s concern. Too much heat can cause a computer to act erratically. In extreme cases, overheating can result in your computer shutting down until it cools off or, worse, cause permanent damage to sensitive components. If you’re using a laptop positioned on your bare legs, you could even suffer third-degree burns.

Author

Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist and a freelance writer and editor specializing in free and open-source software. In addition to his writing projects, he also teaches live and e-learning courses. In his spare time, Bruce writes about Northwest Coast art (http:// brucebyfield. wordpress. com). He is also co-founder of Prentice Pieces, a blog about writing and fantasy at https://prenticepieces.com/.

With so much at stake, there is a real need to monitor hardware temperatures, at least on new machines, on hotter days and during long sessions on your computer. On Linux, you have a number of utilities that will read temperature settings, but many are minimally useful or even obsolete. As a result, you not only have the heat to contend with, but also inadequate or obsolete tools as well. Fortunately, the lm-sensors (Linux monitoring sensors) [1] package can help solve this problem, although it does require some setup and the loading of kernel modules.

A Matter of Thermodynamics

This story is from the #261/August 2022 edition of Linux Magazine.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the #261/August 2022 edition of Linux Magazine.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM LINUX MAGAZINEView All
URL filtering with Pi-hole Into the Funnel
Linux Magazine

URL filtering with Pi-hole Into the Funnel

Supporting browser plug-ins, network-based DNS blockers like Pi-hole help protect you against online tracking and unwanted content.

time-read
10+ mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
Artificial intelligence on the Raspberry Pi Learning Experience
Linux Magazine

Artificial intelligence on the Raspberry Pi Learning Experience

You don't need a powerful computer system to use Al. We show what it takes to benefit from Al on the Raspberry Pi and what tasks the small computer can handle.

time-read
7 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
MakerSpace Manage your greenhouse with a Raspberry Pi Pico W Sheltered Growth
Linux Magazine

MakerSpace Manage your greenhouse with a Raspberry Pi Pico W Sheltered Growth

You can safely assign some greenhouse tasks to a Raspberry Pi Pico W, such as controlling ventilation, automating a heater, and opening and closing windows.

time-read
7 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
Control Center
Linux Magazine

Control Center

Tipi gives you complete control of more than 100 applications and services. A mouse click is all it takes to install the apps.

time-read
6 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
In One Fell Swoop
Linux Magazine

In One Fell Swoop

Topgrade detects all the package managers installed on a system and executes them one by one at the command line.

time-read
3 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
Go Faster!
Linux Magazine

Go Faster!

The fastest way through a curve on a racetrack is along the racing line. Instead of heading for Indianapolis, Mike Schilli trains his reflexes with a desktop application written in Go, just to be on the safe side.

time-read
9 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
Math Magic
Linux Magazine

Math Magic

MathLex lets you easily transform handwritten math formulas to digital format and use them on the web.

time-read
5 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
Custom Repair Toolkit
Linux Magazine

Custom Repair Toolkit

You can do more with System Rescue than just repair broken systems. By adding tools and scripts, you can create a custom rescue environment that meets your needs.

time-read
8 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
At Your Disposal
Linux Magazine

At Your Disposal

Debvm lets you quickly create a temporary virtual machine with a small memory footprint, ideal for testing scripts or mixing repositories

time-read
4 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros
A Fresh Breeze
Linux Magazine

A Fresh Breeze

Vanilla OS, an immutable filesystem, seamlessly integrates applications from other distributions with an innovative container-based package manager.

time-read
5 mins  |
#274/August 2023: The Best of Small Distros