Linux Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10. Getting Detailed Information About Your Computer Hardware

Linux comes with several good utilities for getting detailed information on the hardware components in your computer. You can sit down at a machine and in minutes have an inventory of its components and their specifications, without opening the case.

These utilities are useful for providing detailed information for technical support, finding the correct drivers for a device, and finding out if it is supported in Linux at all. You can’t count on manufacturers to provide timely accurate information about their own products. For example, they will often change their chipsets without changing model numbers, which may turn a device that worked fine on Linux into a device that does not work on Linux. Fortunately, in these modern times Linux support is much less of a hassle than it used to be.

Ideally, you will also have your computer documentation, or at least the motherboard manual. Motherboard manuals are usually full of photos, diagrams, and useful information, and you should be able to find them online.

In this chapter you will learn about the lshw (list hardware), lspci (list PCI), hwinfo (hardware information), lsusb (list USB), lscpu (list CPU), and lsblk (list block devices) commands.

lshw and hwinfo provide the most complete information.

lshw reports memory configuration, firmware versions, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, hardware paths, attached devices, partitions, ...