Re: Using lm-sensors

[David Z Maze <dmaze@debian.org>]

Ross Boylan <RossBoylan@stanfordalumni.org> writes:
RB> I'm trying to use lm-sensors, so far with no luck.  The Readme.Debian
RB> is a bit unclear to me.  It says:
RB> 
RB> To use lm-sensors, you need the lm-sensors module package and an i2c module
RB> package installed. You will probably need to build the modules packages
RB> from source, using the lm-sensors-source and i2c-source packages. If you
RB> have a 2.4 kernel or a recent 2.2 kernel, you can instead use the kernel's
RB> new built-in i2c support -- just enable it in the kernel config.

Oops.  That's a mistake that needs to be fixed in the lm-sensors
README.Debian: with current lm-sensors-source (2.6.0 or later), you
must use the separately bundled i2c package.

RB> Questions:
RB> 
RB> I have a 2.4 kernel with i2c enabled.
RB> Should I be able to apt-get install lm-sensors and have it work?
RB> How do I know if I need to build from source?

I don't believe there are pre-built i2c or lm-sensors modules for any
of the standard Debian kernels.  (And there isn't really a good way to 
build said modules right now, either, which is somewhat irritating.)
This means that you pretty much need to build both lm-sensors and i2c
from source (apt-get install lm-sensors-source i2c-source, unpack the
tarballs in /usr/src, and run 'make-kpkg modules', essentially; see
the kernel-package or lm-sensors-source documentation for more
information).  You'll need to disable the i2c support in the kernel,
since the standalone package is newer and things get confused if you
have both enabled.

RB> Load `i2c-amd756' (say NO if built into your kernel)? (YES/no): 
RB> modprobe: Can't locate module i2c-amd756

This means that you're missing the kernel-specific lm-sensors package
(e.g. kernel-sensors-2.4.7), which would be built from lm-sensors-source.

RB> wheat:/usr/local/rootlog# modprobe i2c-proc
RB> modprobe: Can't locate module i2c-proc

This comes from i2c-2.4.7 on my system (built from i2c-source); I
don't believe it is provided by the kernel i2c support.

-- 
David Maze         dmaze@debian.org      http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/
"Theoretical politics is interesting.  Politicking should be illegal."
	-- Abra Mitchell