The document discusses hardware discovery in Linux, focusing on commands such as lshw, lscpu, lspci, blkid, lsusb, and dmidecode to extract detailed information about system hardware components. It emphasizes problem-solving, upgrading hardware, and provides examples of interpreting command outputs for various hardware parts including the CPU, memory, and storage devices. The presentation serves as an introductory guide for users to explore their hardware configurations and troubleshoot issues effectively.

1. Hardware Discovery
Kevin B. O'Brien
Washtenaw Linux Users Group

2. Why You Need To Know
 Problem solving – Maybe the graphics driver
you are using does not match the video card
you have.
 Upgrading – What is the older hardware on
your system?
 Just figuring out what you have in various
boxes if you have a home network with multiple
machines, or if you support a network with
multiple machines

3. Linux Has Solutions
 Not just one, but many possible solutions
 Different commands can be used to extract
different information
 There are more possible commands you might
use than we can cover in a single presentation,
so take this as a jumping-off point

4. lshw 1
 This is a good starting point for exploration
 ls = list, hw= hardware, so lshw = list my
hardware
 Many of these commands start with ls
 Most of these work better with root privileges,
so either su to the root account or prefix the
command with sudo
 Note that sections in the output are noted by *-
at the beginning of the line

5. lshw 2
kimball
description: Desktop Computer
product: GA-MA785GT-UD3H
vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4 vsyscall64 vsyscall32
configuration: boot=normal chassis=desktop uuid=30303234-3144-
3846-4339-4232FFFFFFFF
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: GA-MA785GT-UD3H
vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
version: x.x

6. lshw 3
 We can see from this section that the
motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-
UD3H
 We can see that it is a 64-bit motherboard
 So if I wanted to put more than 4GB of RAM
into this box, I could probably do it
 And since I know which one it is, I know which
manual to pick up ☺

7. lshw 4
*-firmware
description: BIOS
vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
physical id: 0
version: F1 (07/03/2009)
size: 128KiB
capacity: 960KiB

8. lshw 5
 I see that the BIOS is from Award, version F1,
dated 7/3/2009
 Now I can go to the Award site and see if I have
the latest BIOS
 Don't upgrade the BIOS unless you have a
good reason, like you are having a problem that
is known to be fixed by the upgrade

9. lshw 6
*-cpu
description: CPU
product: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]
physical id: 4
bus info: cpu@0
version: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor
slot: Socket M2
size: 800MHz
capacity: 3GHz
width: 64 bits
clock: 200MHz

10. lshw 7
 In this section I can see my CPU is an AMD
Athlon II, and it is 64-bit
 That is probably a good thing since I already
know my motherboard is 64-bit ☺
 I also see it is an 800 Mz processor. Maybe I
want to upgrade it.
 Looking at the motherboard I can see what my
options are if I keep the motherboard

11. lscpu 1
 If I want just info on my CPU I could also use
lscpu
 This info is in lshw as well, but that is a very
large amount of output
 Using lscpu gets just this if I need it

12. lscpu 2
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 64-bit
CPU(s): 2
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
CPU socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 16
Model: 6
Stepping: 2
CPU MHz: 800.000
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 64K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 1024K

13. lscpu 3
 Here we can easily see that it is a dual-core
processor
 This is useful to know when interpreting things
like the top command, since it will tend to show
a percent of the individual core used for each
process
 I can also see my cache capacity

14. lshw 8
 Back to lshw, there is more to see here
 RAM is something you might want to know
about

15. lshw 9
*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 29
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 16GiB
*-bank:0
description: DIMM 1066 MHz (0.9 ns)
product: None
vendor: None
physical id: 0
serial: None
slot: A0
size: 4GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1066MHz (0.9ns)

16. lshw 10
 We can see that this system has 16 GB of RAM
 We can see that the first bank, which is Bank 0,
has a 4GB stick of RAM, with a clock speed of
1066 MHz, and a 64-bit data path
 I left out the other three banks of RAM, which
are identical to Bank 0

17. lshw 11
*-pci:0
description: Host bridge
product: RS880 Host Bridge
vendor: Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 66MHz
configuration: latency=32
resources: memory:0-1fffffff

18. lshw 12
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: RS880 [Radeon HD 4200]
vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
physical id: 5
bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master
cap_list rom
configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
resources: irq:18 memory:d0000000-dfffffff
ioport:ee00(size=256) memory:fdfe0000-fdfeffff memory:fde00000-
fdefffff

19. lshw 13
*-multimedia
description: Audio device
product: RS880 Audio Device [Radeon HD
4200]
vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
physical id: 5.1
bus info: pci@0000:01:05.1
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=HDA Intel latency=0
resources: irq:19 memory:fdffc000-
fdffffff

20. lshw 14
 The next section gets into PCI devices
 The host device uses a chipset from Hynix
Semiconductor
 The video and audio are both using ATI chips
 Both video and audio are onboard devices on
this machine, not separate add-on cards

21. lspci 1
 Again, if you wanted to go there more directly
you could use lspci
 This gives you more compact information than
lshw

22. lspci 2
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS880 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI
bridge (int gfx)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI
bridge (PCIE port 5)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA
Controller [IDE mode]
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0
Controller
00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI
Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0
Controller
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI
Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3c)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE
Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)

23. lshw 15
*-storage
description: SATA controller
product: SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA
Controller [IDE mode]
vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
physical id: 11
*-disk:0
description: ATA Disk
product: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
physical id: 0
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 1AA0
serial: S13PJ1LS629769
size: 931GiB (1TB)

24. lshw 16
*-volume:0
description: EXT4 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 1
bus info: scsi@2:0.0.0,1
logical name: /dev/sda1
logical name: /
version: 1.0
serial: 5ec20315-eae8-4a00-9207-
1bc29276802c
size: 93GiB
capacity: 93GiB

25. lshw 17
 Here you can see that I have a 1TB SATA drive
attached for storage
 It is device /dev/sda
 It is partitioned, and the first partition is
/dev/sda1, which has as size of 93GB
 And the file system on it is ext4
 There is also an extended partition, etc.

26. blkid 1
 Hard drives are examples of what we call “block
devices”
 They get this name because they move data in
blocks
 Other examples are Optical drives, flash
memory, thumb drives, and memory cards
 You can use this command to get into on all of
your block devices

27. blkid 2
/dev/sda1: UUID="5ec20315-eae8-4a00-9207-1bc29276802c"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="4ae2bbc0-2599-4613-8993-8ea37d6efad3"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda6: UUID="5205a37e-bab5-4db8-9e75-1ce70f8059db"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: UUID="1a021347-4e03-40fb-84c6-44c306e02c0c"
TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="750d70ef-74bc-4fbd-8a3b-21fc8f1cb5a0"
TYPE="ext4"

28. blkid 3
 You see it is a pretty simple listing
 Right now all you see are the hard drive
partitions
 CDs may not appear since they do not have a
UUID
 But see what happens when I plug in a thumb
drive

29. blkid 4
/dev/sda1: UUID="5ec20315-eae8-4a00-9207-1bc29276802c"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="4ae2bbc0-2599-4613-8993-8ea37d6efad3"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda6: UUID="5205a37e-bab5-4db8-9e75-1ce70f8059db"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: UUID="1a021347-4e03-40fb-84c6-44c306e02c0c"
TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="750d70ef-74bc-4fbd-8a3b-21fc8f1cb5a0"
TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sdc1: UUID="67EA-005E" TYPE="vfat"

30. blkid 5
 I have also used this with an SD Memory card
 I needed to format it with an image for booting
using the dd command, and I needed to know
what my target was
 So blkid is less info than lshw, but if all you
need to know is the identifier of each device
and where it is mounted, this gets you there
quickly

31. lshw 18
 The next section of lshw, and the last we will
look at in this presentation, will cover USB
 This will list the USB ports on your machine,
and their characteristics
 I am just going to show the info for one of my
ports

32. lshw 19
*-usb:0
description: USB Controller
product: SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
physical id: 12
bus info: pci@0000:00:12.0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: ohci bus_master
configuration: driver=ohci_hcd latency=32
resources: irq:16 memory:fe02e000-fe02efff

33. lsusb 1
 You might want to try an alternative, the lsusb
command, which I find more useful

34. lsusb 2
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0d3d:0001 Tangtop Technology Co., Ltd
HID Keyboard
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0781:5406 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Micro U3
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:081b Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 050d:0234 Belkin Components F5U234 USB
2.0 4-Port Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

35. lsusb 3
 As you can see, this just lists the devices, but
sometimes that is all you want to know
 I can see my keyboard and mouse here
 The thumb drive I plugged in to demonstrate
the blkid command is listed here as well

36. dmidecode 1
 This is useful for getting info from the BIOS
 For example, does your BIOS support booting
from a CD?
 Or is your BIOS upgradeable?

37. dmidecode 2
Vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
Version: F1
Release Date: 07/03/2009
Address: 0xE0000
Runtime Size: 128 kB
ROM Size: 1024 kB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed

38. dmidecode 3
EDD is supported
5.25"/360 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
AGP is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported

39. Is it working?
 Sometimes the problem is that the hardware
does not seem to be working
 If you cannot find the hardware using one of
these commands, that could be your problem
 If it does not appear, you need to do some
trouble-shooting
 If it is an expansion card, for instance, make
sure it is securely seated in the socket

40. lsmod 1
 If the hardware seems to be there, but it is not
working for you, you might want to check at the
software level
 Hardware needs drivers to work
 In Linux, these drivers tend to take the form of
kernel modules
 The lsmod command lets you see what
modules are installed in the module

41. lsmod 2
Module Size Used by
nls_iso8859_1 12713 1
nls_cp437 16991 1
vfat 21708 1
fat 61374 1 vfat
usb_storage 53538 1
uas 17996 0
nls_utf8 12557 0
udf 93525 0
snd_hrtimer 12784 1
binfmt_misc 17565 1
vboxnetadp 13382 0
vboxnetflt 28297 0
vboxdrv 268268 2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

42. lsmod 3
 This is a simple listing of the contents of
/proc/modules
 You could get essentially the same information
by running cat /proc/modules, but this is easier
to read
 If you do not find the module loaded, that could
be your problem
 modprobe is a command for loading modules,
but a description is beyond this presentation

43. More information
 Each of the commands we have discussed can
do more
 For each command we have covered there is a
man page (man is short for manual)
 To see it, use man <commandname>
 To read through it, use Page Up and Page
Down
 When you are finished reading the man page,
Ctrl+z will get you back to your terminal with a
command prompt

44. This and Other Presentations
 All of my presentations can be found at
http://www.zwilnik.com/ in the Slide Shows area
 All presentation can be downloaded as
LibreOffice/OpenOffice *.odp files, and are
licensed under Creative Commons
 They can also be run as slide shows in your
browser using the links there
 You can reach me at zwilnik@zwilnik.com