Identifying machine harware compatibility on linux.

govindannv · 05-06-2011, 07:02 AM

a. How can I determine the harware type of the machine where the linux is running ?

b. Also, what exactly is the difference between machine hardware name and hardware platform ? (uname -m and uname -i)

c. Output from my machine shows,
- uname -i as i386 and
- uname -m as i686

resetreset · 05-06-2011, 09:22 AM

I think the /proc directory would have data about the hardware, also lspci should reveal a lot.

cascade9 · 05-06-2011, 09:40 AM

a- lshw, dmidecode, hardinfo all will give you some details on the hardware the linux box is running on. I prefer the eyeball method myself, maybe thats just because I like looking at hardware, not readouts.

b-

Quote:

uname [OPTION]...

-m, --machine
print the machine hardware name
-i, --hardware-platform
print the hardware platform or "unknown"

http://linux.die.net/man/1/uname

jake3988 · 05-06-2011, 04:00 PM

'lspci' will reveal all the pci devices on your system, such as soundcards and video cards.

If you want a more detailed, very verbose output, use 'dmesg' (pipe it through more 'dmesg | more' to see it a screenful at a time) and that will show absolutely everything your kernel loaded.

And, of course, /proc/cpuinfo should give you detailed info on your computer, but nothing much about hardware itself.