How can I get System Monitor Indicator to display temperature?

Question

System Monitor Indicator comes with options to display CPU load, memory usage, and other system stats, but currently does not include an option to display temperature (of the CPU, HDD, SSD, GPU, etc.).

There seems to be functionality built in for adding additional sensors by applying a command (by clicking "New"). However, I don't know how, and I cannot find any documentation that describes this feature.

My system is set up to report temperature as so:

user@host:~$ sensors
acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +27.8°C  (crit = +106.0°C)
temp2:        +29.8°C  (crit = +106.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +79.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0:         +79.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:         +77.0°C  (high = +87.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

pkg-temp-0-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1:        +79.0°C  

This question refers to the package indicator-sysmonitor version 0.4.3 from 13.04 raring, although currently I am running it on a 13.10 saucy installation as it has not yet been updated in the ppa:

https://launchpad.net/indicator-sysmonitor

Solution 1

System Monitor Indicator is quite simple / flexible. You can add basically any script as custom sensor. The output it produces will then appear where you put its placeholder. I am using this to extract information from the output of sensors like this:

sensors | grep temp1 | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/+//' 

to exctract the temperature or

sensors | grep fan1 | awk '{print $2}'

to extract the fan speed.

Just click on New, enter a name and a description and the respective lines from above under Command as shown here:

PS: After upgrading from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04 the tool seemed to have problems to read the configuration file, resulting in a crash when I tried to add sensors. Removing .indicator-sysmonitor.json from my home directory fixed this.

Solution 2

There's an indicator for the temperature in this ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexmurray/indicator-sensors
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sensors

It’s already updated with packages for saucy, although I haven't tried it myself since I'm still using 13.04. You can then launch it from the dash or from the command-line and configure to show different sensors and set up alarms.

Comments

[Admin]

I don't understand this comment. How would compiling the application myself add functionality to show temperature?

[binga30]

Thanks. I can recommend this indicator to anybody who's interested in temperature monitoring (in 13.10). However, I am still interested in answers to how to get temperature support in indicator-sysmonitor as well.

[binga30]

There is no answer given at the link you provided, as far as I can see?

[eyeinthebrick]

you right, but it was there yesterday. searching through the site, i belive it still does not support such feature now.

[Wilf]

Nice - I used sensors | grep "Core 1" | awk '{print $3}' as it can work differently on different hardware.

[TiloBunt]

how does this works on "System Load Indicator" 0.4 ; I can't see a add menu with a command enter field.

[fuenfundachtzig]

System Load Indicator is a different application. This question is about github.com/fossfreedom/indicator-sysmonitor

[WinEunuuchs2Unix]

System monitor indicator is an awesome tool.