Hi, I'm running PC-BSD on an IBM NetVista with a 1.8 GHz P4/1.5 GB/80 GB/GeForce 6200 video card, and KDE 4.2, which is pretty heavily integrated into this distribution. I like monitoring my CPU usage, but the CPU System Monitor Widget (the one with the graphic display) has quit working. It first quit working on the task bar, and I'd prefer that location so that I can see it when I have a full size window open. It continued to work when installed on the desktop, but only if I reinstalled it every time I rebooted. Now it won't work at all in either location. When I open the window associated with the widget, there are no CPU's listed. Does anyone have any ideas on what's fouled up?

Thanks in advance for any sugggestions.

Can you please provide the output of "solid-hardware list details | grep CPU" and "lshal | grep CPU"

bcooksley: Thanks for your kind interest! I found as follows:

solid-hardware list details | grep CPU
product = 'Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz' (string)

lshal | grep CPU
info.product = 'Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz' (string)

So far, so good, next?

Looks good. Try running "plasmaengineexplorer", and select "systemmonitor" from the drop down menu. If you cannot find it then you need to install it.

Once found, look in its output for anything related to "cpu".

bcooksley:

I can open Plasma Engine Explorer, no problem. Among other things, I see:

-cpu/system/user
-cpu/system/nice
-cpu/system/sys
-cpu/system/TotalLoad
-cpu/system/intr
-cpu/system/idle

Nothing in SystemMonitor shows a value for key, value, or type for any entry. On a lark, I right-clicked on cpu/system/TotalLoad, clicked on Get Associated Service, and got another dialog box labeled NullService Service Explorer. It showed:

DataEngine: unnamed; Source: cpu/system/TotalLoad; Service NullService

What might this indicate, if anything?

Thanks again.

Well, the hard drive on this system quit, so that may be the problem. I'll reinstall with a new one, and then we'll see how it behaves.

My system monitor is not working either:

$ solid-hardware list details | grep CPU
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU0'
product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU1'
product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU2'
product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU3'
product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)

$ lshal | grep CPU
info.interfaces = {'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement', 'org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.CPUFreq'} (string list)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU0'
info.product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU0' (string)
linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/processor/CPU0' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU1'
info.product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU1' (string)
linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/processor/CPU1' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU2'
info.product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU2' (string)
linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/processor/CPU2' (string)
udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU3'
info.product = 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz' (string)
info.udi = '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/acpi_CPU3' (string)
linux.acpi_path = '/proc/acpi/processor/CPU3' (string)

When i open plasmaengineexplorer, i find systemmonitor, but no there are not DataSources at all.

I am running the latest Kubuntu Karmic alpha (amd64), which has KDE 4.3.1.

Edit: I just noticed that if I start ksysguard, it spawns a zombie about once per second.

Can you please check dmesg and /var/log/messages to determine if ksysguardd is crashing?

bcooksley wrote:Can you please check dmesg and /var/log/messages to determine if ksysguardd is crashing?

Ah, that was it. ksysguardd was not installed.
It was only a recommends in the ksysguard package, and I have turned off automatically installing recommends in aptitude.

Okay, I have reinstalled onto a completely different machine with a brand new HD. Here's what I see:

- If I install the widget "System Monitor - system monitoring applet", I get an icon on the task bar, but no display. If I click on the icon, then I get a dialog box on the desktop with five icons. Clicking on one or more of these icons gets me a display on the desktop, but nothing additional on the task bar. However, the widget seems to work correctly.

- If I install the widget "System Monitor - CPU", I get exactly what I'm looking for - a small window with a display of CPU activity on the far right side of the task bar. But when I turn on the computer again and reboot, I find only an icon, and it displaces a wide "window" on the task bar. If I left-click on this icon, I get nothing. If I right-click on it, I get the usual dialog box for any widget. I then remove it and reinstall, and the new widget works perfectly - until I shut down or otherwise reboot.

- If I open the System Monitor application, ksysguard is running.

Is there a way to have the boot process restart this widget successfully?

Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

I do not know if the System Monitor behaves correctly in the Panel unfortunately. I only use it on the main desktop. This is likely to be a bug in the widget if removing and adding it again fixes it.