Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!

Mykle1

I find myself in a similar situation, again. :-)

This is my cry for help. I only do this when I’ve tried all the things I know
and googled the things I don’t know. I’ve even tried free form improvising but coding
seems to reject that sort of thing, at least in my case.

About 2 weeks ago I wrote a module that gets system stats from a PC board running
ubuntu and MM. There is just one more thing that I want to include. I want to get the system
temperature (CPU?) and/or the temps of any other system components.

So, it is with the utmost humility that I ask for your help, suggestions or directions. I won’t
object to any modifications that anyone cares to make, if that is the case. If it can’t be done,
I can live with that, too. Even if you look at the module and never make any comments regarding
my request, I still thank you for your time and interest.

https://github.com/mykle1/MMM-PC-Stats

Peace

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 It doesn’t seem that pc-stats has all the info you require. You might consider switching to the systeminformation package.

You can then use si.cpu() for your CPU stats and si.cpuTemperature() to retrieve an object that (if I read the docs right) looks like { main: 0, max: 0, cores: [0, 0] } with your core temps. You can then combine the two responses (or you may be able to have it return all within one request) and return those in a single sendNotification() call.

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman

You know, I started out with that package but had some trouble with it. Likely, the problem was me, but I moved to the pc-stats package and had no problems. However, as you saw, that package doesn’t offer the cpu temps. I then tried unsuccessfully to use other packages along with pc-stats to get the temps but my knowledge and abilities are woefully inadequate. For whatever reason, I was able to get a return from pc-stats. That’s no small miracle where I’m concerned. I do like the data that the return gives me, especially the multicore support.

Anyway, I did give it more than a few days and more than a few attempts but I will look at systeminformation again in the hopes that I can stumble across some success. Really, I am not qualified to be doing any of this. I just find it so fascinating that I keep trying until I get something right. And then there are the few special people that have taken pity on me and taught me what I needed to know at any given moment. They have my deepest gratitude and respect.

Thanks for pointing me back to where I should have been all along. :-)

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 Depending on the style/implementation you’re using, you may want to read up on Promises in JS.

Also, see this note here about the lm-sensors package.

Alternatively, have a look at MMM-SystemStats which uses vcgencmd on the CLI to retrieve the system temp, which would be far easier to integrate into your current module.

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

Alternatively, have a look at MMM-SystemStats which uses vcgencmd on the CLI to retrieve the system temp, which would be far easier to integrate into your current module.

Thanks ninja. I will give this a shot first. In fact, I’m going to look at that right now.

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 Hmm, it may be that vcgencmd is specific to the RPi. You can try these; acpi seems like a contender, as does lm-sensors.

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

Hmm, it may be that vcgencmd is specific to the RPi.

Ha! I see. Ok, on to the others. :-)

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 It actually might be best to run cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type to see if they’re already populating on your Ubuntu install. If so, you can run cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp to get all the values, or just cat a specific one. Should be to three decimal places (i.e. 64000 means 64.000°C).

You might run it a few times to see that the values change, and if they do, then use the same exec() method from MMM-SystemStats with the right command and some math.

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

acpi seems like a contender, as does lm-sensors.

Made some progress with lm-sensors which gives me great hope. I can see the return in the terminal but not in the node_helper. Still, I’m encouraged. I’ll continue to work on it tomorrow. I’m feeling a bit tired tonight.

Sockets connected & modules started ...
Launching application.
{ 'nouveau-pci-0100': { 'PCI adapter': { temp1: [Object] } },
  'coretemp-isa-0000': 
   { 'ISA adapter': 
      { 'Core 0': [Object],
        'Core 1': [Object],
        'Core 2': [Object],
        'Core 3': [Object] } } }
Whoops! There was an uncaught exception...
TypeError: this.sendSocketNotification is not a function
    at /home/pop/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-PC-Stats/node_helper.js:32:9
    at /home/pop/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-PC-Stats/node_modules/sensors.js/lm-sensors.js:96:12
    at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:209:7)
    at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:194:7)
    at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:899:16)
    at Socket. (internal/child_process.js:342:11)
    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:191:7)
    at Pipe._handle.close [as _onclose] (net.js:510:12)

E3V3A

@Mykle1 Not sure what you’re doing in your code. But…

You’ll get a temp reading for each cpu core, so you need to choose|add|average…, and
How do you execute the script? Did you give it proper permissions?
I’m you already know, but you also need to allow the external file to be read from node_helper.js.

Mykle1

@E3V3A said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

Not sure what you’re doing in your code. But…

Neither am I. :-)

strawberry 3.141

@Mykle1 you might want to upload your current version to a github branch so we can see what your doing

cowboysdude

He can’t it’s a secret HAHHAHAHAHHA

Mykle1

I would like to thank everyone that gave me suggestions and advice. I really do appreciate the support.

I ended up using a combination of 2 npm packages. pc-stats and sensors.js. My first time building a module from an npm package, and then adding a second to the same module confused me quite a bit. That, and my lack of any real coding experience, found me at a standstill.

Well, once again, @cowboysdude took pity on me. He took the time to teach me where I went wrong, and what I was missing, and what I didn’t need. Maybe I won’t retain everything that he taught me but I will certainly remember his kindness and generosity. His patience is astonishing. :-)

https://github.com/mykle1/MMM-PC-Stats

Now I just need some formatting if anyone cares to assist me with that. Anyway, here’s a quick shot. Ideally, I would like to move the Core temps to right, just under the video card temp

Mykle1

@cowboysdude said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

He can’t it’s a secret HAHHAHAHAHHA

My code (if you can even call it that) is never a secret. It’s more like an embarrassing teenager moment. ;-)

However, I do enjoy learning and I do appreciate you taking the time to teach me. You’re a damn good dude! :-)

ninjabreadman

@Mykle1 Glad to hear you got it working!

Is this your dev environment? Or do you really have an i7 780, GTX 660 and 16Gb running MM? At least it can run MMM-Globe!

Mykle1

@ninjabreadman said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

Glad to hear you got it working!

Thanks ninja. Your suggestions pointed me in the right direction, but even then I was at a loss on how to proceed. @cowboysdude deserves all the credit, though. He took the time to explain things to me.

Is this your dev environment? Or do you really have an i7 780, GTX 660 and 16Gb running MM? At least it can run MMM-Globe!

This is my dev machine. It dual boots Windows and ubuntu. I found it on craigslist, although it came with 8GB of RAM. Luckily for me, it wouldn’t boot when I went to buy it so I stole it for $80 and had it up and running in minutes after getting it home.

MMM-Globe! Yes, very nice module. Stunning graphics. But I prefer MMM-EARTH with an animation speed of 0 and a rotate interval of 1000. Also challenging for a Pi but the laptop boards I use handle it nicely and I get the most recent images of Earth. I’ve seen hurricanes develop and an eclipse. Pretty spectacular stuff. :-)

E3V3A

@Mykle1 I love seeing all the progress and work you put into your module development. I must say, as an old time computer fanatic, I’m very impressed with your progress. I’m totally new to MM and still find the node/electron/express framework a rather challenging learning experience. I’ve done some fair amount of rather advanced R&D and bare-metal programming and hacking, and never expected that something based on JS, would be the thing to slow me down! Boy was I wrong and full respect to all those dev’s here, who are able to produce such nice work. I guess it again proves that technical skills without creativity is useless.

As for the Module, IMHO each individual core Temp is not a very interesting parameter, because of load-balancing. Unless you have a faulty core or are explicitly telling your machine to be running certain processes on a single core. In addition, because of how heat is distributed rather evenly throughout the chip dye, you’d never see much difference than a few degrees, so I would rather average the core temps into one, and possibly show the divergence of them. (I.e. the greatest % difference from the average.)

cowboysdude

@E3V3A That’s the beauty of a module. A developer builds how he wants it to work for himself then shares it with others :) The BEST thing about that is it’s open source so anyone can modify it to fit their own needs… I’ve done that several times and that’s what makes this so much fun! :)

Mykle1

@E3V3A said in Module Developer Challenge - I surrender!:

I’m very impressed with your progress.

I appreciate that. Frankly, I’m amazed that I’ve gotten any of my modules to work. I joined this forum 13 months ago without the slightest idea of what linux or a raspberry pi even was. I realized quickly enough that I wanted to learn how things worked and started reading and asking questions. With the help of some very nice people I was able to make my first module, MMM-Cocktails. At this point, I was totally hooked. It’s still magic to me and I enjoy every minute of the learning process.