Fan won't shut off!!!

[bossdog22]

I have MEPIS & Windows XP installed on my laptop (P4 2.8GHz, 60GB HD, 512MB RAM) in a dual boot setup. When I boot into MEPIS, the fan just runs and runs and runs.... I don't use MEPIS more the 20mins or so b/c I'm afraid I'll burn something out. Has anyone had this problem and if so how do I fix it? I didn't think my system would require damn small linux or some other distro that's easier on the hardware. I went with MEPIS b/c I'm a newbie and want to try one of the more popular distros so when I have trouble I can get help. Is there another popular distro that may be easier on my system?

[bossdog22]

What about DSL or Vector Linux??? Those are designed to run on older machines. Do you think they would run without constantly kicking on the fan? It was such an ordeal to get my wireless card to work (Broadcom chipset) using ndiswrapper & all kinds of other drivers/utilities that at this point I just want a Linux distro to run without any required tweeks. If I have to continuously tweek the system (right now I'm looking at powernowd as that seems to be the only solution I've found) what's the point??? I knew there would be a learning curve, but this is starting to get out of hand quickly and I haven't even installed anything in MEPIS yet?!?!?

[Zelmo]

It's not a matter of which distro you use, it's a CPU frequency thing. Frequency daemons like powernowd aren't included in default installations, probably because there hasn't been one single daemon deemed the right fit for every situation, so the choice of whether to use one and which one to use is still entirely up to the user.
That said, my own research and experience have led me to use powernowd for my laptop, and that's what I'd recommend to you.

[bossdog22]

Ok, installed the latest powernowd and it didnt' work... gave me a message stating that I need kernel 2.6.7 or something and MEPIS is only on 2.6.15... I went back and downloaded the oldest version but now I cant get it installed... how do you add a package to the repository???... it was no problem with the first powernowd (0.97 something) but now I cant get an older version into the Synaptic package manager... is there another way around the package manager... HELP

[bossdog22]

I installed an older version of powernowd and still no luck. I get the following from the shell:

root@1[~]# powernowd
powernowd: PowerNow Daemon v0.85, (c) 2003 John Clemens
powernowd: Found 1 cpu.
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
Couldn't open file: No such file or directory
couldn't open govn's file for writing: No such file or directory
Couldn't get per-cpu data: Illegal seek
PowerNowd encountered and error and could not start.
Please make sure that:
- You are running a v2.5/v2.6 kernel or later
- That you have sysfs mounted /sys
- That you have the core cpufreq and cpufreq-userspace
modules loaded into your kernel
- That you have the cpufreq driver for your cpu loaded,
and that it works. (check dmesg for errors)
If all of the above are true, and you still have problems,
please email the author: clemej@alum.rpi.edu

I don't even know where to begin now... anyone have a suggestion???

[Zelmo]

Firstly, let's clear up the kernel naming convention. The "dots" in the kernel name (as with most software version names) aren't actually decimals, they're just separators. So 2.6.15 is read "two six fifteen" rather than "two point six point one five," and is higher (newer) than 2.6.7. So your kernel is plenty new for the latest powernowd.

As for the error, there's one more package I forgot that you need (sorry, it's been a while). Get the libcpufreq0 package--that's the middleware between the daemon and the kernel.

[bossdog22]

Now the package is all fracked up or something. I went into the synaptic package manager & all it did was delete the package instead of fixing it??? I downloaded the package from debian.org. Then I went back and got the libsys-dev package b/c the output of the shell said libcpufreq depended on it and now it won't install either. Here's the output from the shell below:

Selecting previously deselected package libsysfs-dev.
(Reading database ... 75251 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libsysfs-dev (from libsysfs-dev_1.2.0-5_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libsysfs-dev:
libsysfs-dev depends on libsysfs1 (= 1.2.0-5); however:
Version of libsysfs1 on system is 1.3.0-7.
dpkg: error processing libsysfs-dev (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
libsysfs-dev
root@1[~]# dpkg -i libcpufreq-dev_0.2-1_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package libcpufreq-dev.
(Reading database ... 75276 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libcpufreq-dev (from libcpufreq-dev_0.2-1_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libcpufreq-dev:
libcpufreq-dev depends on libsysfs-dev (>= 1.0.0); however:
Package libsysfs-dev is not configured yet.
libcpufreq-dev depends on libcpufreq0 (= 0.2-1); however:
Package libcpufreq0 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing libcpufreq-dev (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
libcpufreq-dev


Does anyone know how to install these packages???

[bossdog22]

PLEASE IGNORE PREVIOUS POST as I realize I tried to install development packages (hence the -dev in the name). But I have another question, I see several other packages (libc6, 6.1 and libsysfs1) listed as dependent for libcpufreq0. How do I tell of my kernel already has those installed? I guess I could try to install and wait for dependency problem listings but I imagine there is a way to see a list of installed packages. Should I go into the synaptic package manager or is there a command line instruction/prompt that will tell me?

[Zelmo]

The beauty of apt-get is that it will install whatever dependencies you need, so you don't need to worry about whether libc6 and libsysfs1 are already installed.

[bossdog22]

Why am I getting a configure error from the cpufreq daemon that says libcpufreq is NOT installed when it clearly IS according to synaptic package manager and my code. Look at the first few lines of the shell I've pasted below and you can clearly see I've installed it. What gives?????

root@1[~]# dpkg -i libcpufreq0_0.2-1_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 75257 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libcpufreq0 0.2-1 (using libcpufreq0_0.2-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libcpufreq0 ...
Setting up libcpufreq0 (0.2-1) ...

Now the cpufreq daemon compilation, I only pasted the last couple of lines, everything above that went just fine:

checking for scandir... yes
checking for socket... yes
checking for connect... yes
checking for perror... yes
checking for dlopen in -ldl... (cached) yes
checking for cpufreq_cpu_exists in -lcpufreq... no
configure: error: You need libcpufreq from cpufrequtils to build cpufreqd

I can't understand why cpufreq isn't seeing libcpufreq???