Taking your hardware's temperature
Command Line – lm-sensors
© Photo by Jarritos Mexican Soda on Unsplash
With lm-sensors, you can monitor your hardware's internal temperature to avoid overheating.
Hardware temperatures have long been the concern of system 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.
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
Quite simply, computer components give off heat when they are in use. When crammed into a confined space, their heat can easily increase rather than disperse. Faster components generally produce more heat. The problem can be especially difficult with a laptop, whose components are crammed into an even smaller space than in a workstation or server. The trend in the last decade toward thinner and thinner laptops aggravates the problem even further.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.