Monitoring CPU and temperature

I personally use system monitor extension for Gnome since it's an inbuilt piece of software and doesn't consume too much resources in order to provide hardware information and is a widget on the top panel.

It's also highly customizable so you can set refresh rate per the separate components like cpu, ram, disk, network, etc It also has swap, fan and battery options.

This is my widget on Ubuntu 18.04.03 LTS with Unity, it's configured only to keep in track RAM and Disk read/writes, but you can customize it as you wish, as seen below in the preferences panel

Here you can find more information on how to install and use it http://ubuntuhandbook.org

This is a quick-and-dirty way I use to monitor my system core temperatures.

• install lm-sensors (if available in repository and can read CPU / GPU temps on respective hardware.
• install watch

watch repeatedly executes the following command until exited. By default, it refreshes every 2 seconds, but this can be changed using "-n " switch.

In a console window or on cli, execute

• watch sensors shows temps, refreshes every 2 seconds
• watch -n 5 sensors shows temps, refreshes every 5 seconds

My output shows:

Every 5.0s: sensors              HOST-NAME: Wed Apr 15 08:13:57 2020

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Package id 0:  +45.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 0:        +45.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:        +45.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 2:        +44.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 3:        +44.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

There are ultilitys in lm_sensors, its all a bit non-intuitive,, fancontrol 1st, then pwmconfig

With psensor and real time measurement you need to be careful. I tried the program and I could hear by the fan of my laptop that the system-load created by psensor heated up the CPU non-negligibly. Somehow it prevented the CPU from idling. Now, with psensor de-installed the fan is less active. As the program only measures the temperatures and does not control the fan, at the same noise level the system should be cooler without psensor.

The software is called psensor.

• Linux: https://wpitchoune.net/psensor/
• Specific for Ubuntu: https://wpitchoune.net/psensor/ubuntu.html

There is an option to display the info on the toolbar, as well as in a stand-alone window.