I am an Ubuntu 11.10 user with a laptop with a noisy fan. the fan runs way too frequently, blowing when all I'm doing is web browsing. I am willing to sacrifice speed for a less hot laptop, can someone please tell me how to make my fan turn on less frequently? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
First, depending on the age of the laptop, clean out the vents.
lesswatts has a comprehensive set of tutorials to reduce power use:
http://www.lesswatts.org/tips/index.php
For the cpu speed see
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/07/cpu-frequency-scaling-indicator-fixed.html