Old laptop... where do I find hardware specs

I have an old compaq laptop (like brfore Hp owned compaq) and I put slackware on it a couple of years ago an then got so busy with school I couldn't do anything with it. I would like to know how to get the harware specs so that I can try to get the drivers that I need, most inportant for me is the video because I hate that jitter skip thing it does when you drag a window and the drivers aren't loaded. ahhhh.

I heard that you can do this very easily with knopix.

what do you all think?

I was also thinking about putting something else like DSL or maybe even trying to find a more user friendly small linux out there.

any suggestions?

Knoppix could tell you, but if you already have Slackware on it, tools like lspci will report back on all hardware devices, and the processor / memory / hard drive size, etc. will be available under /proc under the associated areas. Depending on your windowmanager, there might be a system manager option such as within KDE Control Center that breaks it down and shows all the info on your system.

alright so do I just go to the command line and type in lspci or /proc ?

I nkow these may be silly wuestions but I put linux on that machine so that I could learn how to use it.... just haven't learned yet!

Welcome to LQ, j.funk!

The answer to your question (and more) can be found at:
http://www.slackbook.org/
http://library.n0i.net/linux-unix/ad...are-unleashed/
http://www.slackbasics.org/
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

Looks like you've got some reading to do!

Also, go to the Compaq website and search for documentation on your computer's model.

thanks!!!!

If you have time you should drive by the Linux on laptops site as well. an older laptop should be easy to find in the list and the how-to's usually cover the sound, modem and NIC.. this site can be a great resource when dealing with laptops.

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/compaq.html