I have installed i8kutils and thought that I could use these
conveniently. I thought I would find some config file to set
temperatures. I haven't found one, and running "i8kmon -d -a -t 5 &"
doesn't seem to work.
I did a google search with the terms "gnome linux
cpu temperature
applet" and got a lot of hits. The link
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/lm_sensors-guide-or-how-to-mon...
was very helpful on what to install to get sensor readings.