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How to download and compile CoreFreq to monitor your CPU?

Do you know the exact speed of your CPU? Or how the various process on your computer are bound to different cores?

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How to download and compile CoreFreq to monitor your CPU?

Even if hardware performances are not your passion, don’t miss that video as I take that occasion to show you how to download and compile a software from the "sources". You know, just like in "Open Source"…​

What is it about?

In this video, you will learn a little bit more about YOUR computer and about Open Source software by downloading the sources of the CoreFreq CPU monitor and compiling them on your computer. https://github.com/cyring/CoreFreq

CoreFreq is a software made of three parts. A kernel module, a daemon, and a client interface. If you’re not sure of the meaning of those words, maybe you should take a look first at my What is the kernel video first.

What is the target audience?

This video is pretty self-contained. And only require very basic skills in using the terminal emulator and a shell.

What is shown in the video should work on any Linux distribution. But I only describe how to install the basic development tools required both for Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu, …​) as well as for Fedora and derivatives (RHEL, CentOS, …​) If you have details for other distributions, don’t hesitate to use the comment section at the bottom of the video to share that with other viewers.

What if I don’t have the Atom text editor?

In the video I use the free and opensource Atom text editor (http://atom.io)

But any text editor is suitable to inspect and edit the source code of CoreFreq. From the shell you could use the nano text editor or vi (or it’s clone vim--my favorite). Those are not the most user-friendly though.

If you look for GUI text editor, you could try gedit or many others.

On the other hand, a word processor such as LibreOffice Text is probably not the best fit to edit source code.

What if CoreFreq hangs/do not work?

CoreFreq works for a large set of 64 bits AMD and Intel processors. But not all processor are currently supported. Feel free to contribute!

More practically, take a close look at the CoreFreq README file. you may need to disable the NMI watchdog on your system for CoreFreq to work properly. The README file is the place to look to see how to "de-install" CoreFreq. Let’s assume that being part of your homework ;)