This work is based on Joerg Mertin's work by extending the script a little to make them more compatible with the recent Linux distributions. The pair of scripts, when installed, will take over the fan speed controller and slightly (configurably) increase the fan speeds in order to make the Mac Mini run at a lower temperature.

The scripts are made for Debian but given the proper modifications they could be made to work on other distributions as well. The script dependencies rely on the modules msr, coretemp and applesmc to be loaded on boot. This can be accomplished by adding them to /etc/modules such that they will be loaded on boot. You can open up an editor and load /etc/modules and add the lines:

msr
coretemp
applesmc

after that you can start setting up the scripts.

Here is the tree structure which shows where the two script files should be placed:

   +
   |
   +-/etc
   |   +
   |   |
   |   +-/init.d
   |        +
   +-/usr   |
       +    +- macmini-fan
       |
       +-/bin
           +
           |
           +- applesmc.sh

First, place the applesmc.sh controller script at /usr/bin/applesmc.sh and make it executable with:

chmod +x /usr/bin/applesmc.sh

This script will run as a daemon by polling the temperature and adjusting the fan speed accordingly.

Then, place macmini-fan at /etc/init.d/macmini-fan and make it executable:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/macmini-fan

Additionally, make the macmini-fan start on bootup by issuing the following command:

update-rc.d macmini-fan defaults

If everything is configured correctly, you can issue:

service macmini-fan start

and with ps ax you can check whether applesmc.sh shows up in the process list.