Installing psensor Graphical Temperature Monitoring App

psensor is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) temperature and hardware monitoring software for Linux.  Since I just build this Linux box a few months ago I wanted to make sure I got the air flow right and everything inside is running cool since this box stays on 24/7. I tried a few command line apps along with with a few other GUI monitors but psensor picked up all my hardware temperature sensors, my CPU, NVME drive, SSD drive, spinning hard drive and video card along with it's fan's RPMs.

Screen shot so you can see if psensor will be useful for you

Let's install it.  Open a Terminal window as we will be doing most of our work from there.

psensor needs a helper app, lm-sensors, so in your Terminal window type:

sudo apt install lm-sensors

Once lm-semsors installs we need to detect the sensors on your system. In your Terminal window type:

sudo sensors-detect

During the detect phase you will be asked about each sensor check before it's done.  Follow the on-screen instructions and enter your answers after carefully reading each question (I just answered YES to all of them). When you are asked to “automatically add lines”, answer YES. Once the wizard is done, reboot your system.

Now let's make sure we are getting readings that psensor will need. In your Terminal window type:

sensors

You should see some output in your Terminal window that looks like this:

Once you're getting some readings we can install psensor so we'll have a nice graphical window display with our temperature sensors listed and we'll be able to change their names so that we know what we're looking at.

In your Terminal windows type:

sudo apt install psensor

This will install psensor.  Once it finishes, you should be able to find a shortcut to it in your SHOW APPLICALTIONS MENU.  Click on the psensor application icon and you should see something like the following:

If you want to name or rename your sensors (right side list) you simple go to MENU-->PSENSOR-->SENSOR PREFERENCE.  This will launch a pop up screen, like the following, which allows you to change the sensor's name.

Just select the sensor that you want to change the name of by clicking on it and then type what you want to called it in the NAME section under the DETAIL tab.  When finished just click OK and your changes will be saved.

When you are done looking at your systems sensors and you click the CLOSE "X" on the psensor window you need to know that it does NOT stop the program.  psensor stays running in the background and puts an icon of a thermometer in your "system tray" area?  (panel? ).  (I couldn't find it's official name in 30 seconds or less so here's a screen shot).

To close psensor completely you have to click on the little thermometer icon and select QUIT.  The reason it stays running is so you can graph your hardware temperature/fan/stress during different operations. 

  

Over all psensor is a nice monitor program that allows you to set the sensor's names to something that will be meaningful to you.