I finally got around to getting lm_sensors to work on my main desktop this evening. I now have gkrellm informing me that my CPU fan is spinning at 5443 RPM and the CPU’s temperature is 49°C. Talk about useless information. I can’t work out why this kind of thing appeals to me, but it always has; ever since I was a kid I have liked all kinds of data and stats.
I also spent a happy hour patching pppd to allow the use of the Sony Ericsson GC82 cellular modem under Linux. What a pain in the arse. It works now, but only as a GPRS modem. EDGE doesn’t seem to be supported around these parts, which is a shame, as that would supposedly allow speeds of up to 200 Kbps. As it is, the speed is horrid and compounded by diabolical latency. This is strictly for when no other connectivity is available and you can’t go another second without an on-line fix.
A few days ago, I upgraded the wireless PCMCIA card in my IBM ThinkPad T40 laptop to a Proxim 802.11b/g card. The madwifi driver that runs it seems to have come on in leaps and bounds over the last six months, but I still get random oopses when removing the card. Still, it mostly works, so now I can break the 11 Mbit barrier when I’m relatively close to an access point.