Recently, I switched from Pop!_OS to Ubuntu Budgie as my primary operating system. For the most part, the transition has gone smoothly. There was, however, something interesting that happened to me System76 Thelio desktop that I have never experienced before. In a different OS, the fans are always running. This led me down several rabbit holes before I solved the problem. Finally, the issue was resolved by installing the System76 firmware required to properly control the fans. However, the process reminds me of a tool that can give Linux a boost to your hardware.
Also: The best Linux distros for beginners
You see, every motherboard has different sensors that monitor things like temperature – and the temperature of your PC is very important. Those CPUs can get very hot. If they overheat, your computer may crash (or worse). Because every PC manufacturer does things differently, and because PC internals vary from iteration to iteration, it’s not always 100% certain that an operating system you Install each of the sensors on your motherboard. Usually, the OS installation is a good job but you may find (as I did) that your fans are running constantly, even when you are not using the machine.
Also: The best laptop cooling pads (that actually work)
If that happens, you should use the sensors-detect order Let me show you how Ubuntu-based Linux distributions do it.
How to install and use sensors-detect
What you need: The only things you need for this are a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and a user with sudo privileges.
As many Linux distributions do not ship with the required software installed, you will need to add it manually. Open your desktop menu and select the terminal application.
From a terminal window, issue the following command on an Ubuntu-based distribution:
sudo apt-get install lm-sensors -y
Once lm-sensors is installed, you are ready to use the sensors-detect command.
In a terminal window, issue the command:
After running the sensors-detect command, you will be asked several questions, including:
- Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers have embedded sensors. Do you want to scan for them? It is completely safe. (Yes/No):
- Some Super I/O chips have embedded sensors. We need to write to standard I/O ports to check this. It is usually safe. Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (Yes/No):
- Some systems (mostly servers) implement IPMI, a set of common interfaces through which system health data can be obtained, among other things. Let’s first try to get the information from SMBIOS. If we don’t find it there, we have to read from arbitrary I/O ports to check for such interfaces. It is usually safe. Do you want to scan IPMI interfaces? (Yes/No):
- Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through ISA I/O ports. We need to write to arbitrary I/O ports to check this. It is usually safe though. Yes, you have ISA I/O ports even if you don’t have ISA slots! Do you want to scan ISA I/O ports? (yes/no):
- Want to check out I2C/SMBus adapters today? (Yes/No):
Also: How to install Linux on an old laptop
Answer Yes to all questions. When all the questions are answered, it will ask if you want it to show a summary. Press Enter on your keyboard to display the results. When the results are displayed, sensors-detect will ask if you want it to automatically add the necessary items to /etc/modules. For me, it lists coretemp as a module I need to add. Type Yes and the modules will be added. Remember, if sensor-detect lists multiple modules, you’ll need to do a little research before letting the tool add them all. You can finish adding modules that are already built into your installed kernel.
If the sensors find additional modules in /etc/module, you can continue and reboot for the modules to take effect.
And that’s it! Hopefully, your operating system now has better control over your hardware to improve the Linux experience.
Also: The most important reason why you should use Linux at home
