Archive for May, 2009

Update to Debian Lenny

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

When updating to Debian 5.0 Lenny I hit some problems and also found some solutions:

Xen does not work after upgrading.
The problem is, that Xen 3.0 depends on python2.4 but Lenny comes with python2.5. SiD3WiNDR describes two solutions to the problem. I upgraded Xen and Xen Tools:

aptitude install xen-utils-3.2-1

F-Secure Linux Security does not work with Lennys Kernel
F-Secure uses the dazuko kernel model, which is incompatible with kernel 2.6.26 because it uses old Kernel API (I guess). DazukoFS may be a solution as proposed in Ubuntu Forum. While writing this, there is no solution from F-Secure available.

Control Fan speed on ASUS Motherboard

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

To control the speed of the CPU fan one can use the lm-sensors package.
aptitude install lm-sensors
The script sensors-detect can be used to detect the available sensors and the kernel modules, which have to be loaded to use these sensors. The script could directly alter the /etc/modules file. After determining the kernel modules and loading them the command sensors lists the sensor values. The values for the fans can usually be found in /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon0/device/fan*_input. If these files in the sys file system are not present, make sure the correct kernel modules are loaded.

The pwmconfig script is then used to determine the available fan controls. Take a look at lm-sensors.org if controling the fan speed is supported by the kernel module you have to use for your hardware. Sometimes the list tells use to use a newer kernel. pwmconfig generates the /etc/fancontrol file, which is used by the fancontrol daemon to set the fan speed according to the cpu temperature. Restarting fancontrol with /etc/init.d/fancontrol should make your cpu fan silent.

For my Asus Mainboard, which supports Q-Fan on it’s own I have to use the w83627ehf kernel module and a quite current kernel to control the fan.

Another HOWTO can be found on tjansson.dk.