We can monitor temperatures and control fans. For Windows there is a good freeware program speedfan. Linux works differently in that support for hardware sensors is built into the operating system. So we have to install the sensors package first (as described here) we can then use programs like gkrellm or KSysGuard (as described here). I asked about it on the alt.os.linux.suse newsgroup and got these very helpful replies here.
powersave
Start a console window and type:
powersave -T
Thermal Device no. 0:
Temperature: 40
Critical: 110
Passive: 100
Active 0: 100
So far I always get a temperature of 40, I think that this is displaying THRM, the preset temperature which the BIOS is maintaining, rather than an actual reading.
I have copied the powersave helpfile here.
