In Linux, we can use the command terminal to check various system hardware configurations and information such as CPU, Memory, hard disk, etc., and here are those to use…
Although there are tools that can display Linux system info graphically, however, here we are going to use the inbuilt commands.
The question of how a system is equipped and how it performs in harsh everyday life is not only of theoretical interest. Lot’s of time to solve a problem we need to know hardware and its utilization to remove some bottleneck. Thus, if you are new to Linux systems or running any cloud server where you want to know about the system load, the network interface, and type of processor and chipset, or what hardware is actually in the system? Then here some top commands to follow…
Commands to View Linux System info using terminal
Here we are using Ubuntu 20.04 to display the results of the Linux system info commands, however, you can use them on older versions such as Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 including RPM-based distros like CentOS and RHEL. Apart from them, others are also supported such as Debian, Linux Mint, Kali, Elementary OS, Manjaro, and more.
1. Check Linux system CPU info and Virtualization support
To check out the full information of Linux system’s CPU such as Type of Architecture (i386, x86_64, etc.) (32-bit or 64-bit), Socket, Cores per socket, CPU speed, L cache, Virtualization type or support, etc. use the below given single command:
lscpu
Furthermore, you can also check each CPU in detail (CPU model, frequency, etc.) of your computer, laptop, or server using:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Output:
Processor : 01 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 58 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz stepping : 9 microcode : 0x21 cpu MHz : 3392.293 cache size : 8192 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 1 core id : 0 .................
2. Know about Linux System RAM details
Check out free Memory on your Linux system along with details of its size and hardware information.
To print free available RAM, type:
free -m
Those who are interested in full detail such as Total Memory, Free Memory, Buffers, Cache, Swap cached, Active, mapped, and more… can go for this one:
cat /proc/meminfo
To identify each RAM used on each memory slot of your system’s motherboard, print the Memory Controller information using the dmidecode command:
sudo dmidecode -t memory
3. Find out BIOS Info on Linux using Dmidecode
Dmidecode dumps the DMI (Desktop Management Interface) information of the machine in a readable way. This information includes hardware and BIOS.
You can get the current configuration and the maximum configuration supported by the system, such as the maximum amount of memory supported that we already have shown above…
Therefore, here are some uses of the dmidecode command to know further details of the system as well such as BIOS version, motherboard, and processor.
sudo dmidecode -t system sudo dmidecode -t bios sudo dmidecode -t processor
If you want to view all Linux useful system information use this one. However, it will give a lot of information.
sudo dmidecode -q
4. Command to view hard disk and partition distribution
Do you want to know about each size of Hard disk and partition available? Then use-
lsblk
OutPut:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT loop0 7:0 0 1.9G 1 loop /rofs loop1 7:1 0 27.1M 1 loop /snap/snapd/7264 loop2 7:2 0 55M 1 loop /snap/core18/1705 loop3 7:3 0 240.8M 1 loop /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/24 loop4 7:4 0 62.1M 1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1506 loop5 7:5 0 49.8M 1 loop /snap/snap-store/433 sda 8:0 0 20G 0 disk ├─sda1 8:1 0 512M 0 part ├─sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part └─sda5 8:5 0 19.5G 0 part sr0 11:0 1 2.5G 0 rom /cdrom
Furthermore, those who want to dig more on hard disk and partitions, then to have each detail of the installed drives run fdisk -l with sudo rights:
sudo fdisk -l
Output
Disk /dev/loop0: 1.93 GiB, 2049204224 bytes, 4002352 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk /dev/loop1: 27.9 MiB, 28405760 bytes, 55480 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes ....
To get a clear view and all information along with the type of file system and partitions mounted points, we can also use:
df -h
Mount points can be further elaborated with:
mount | column -t
5. Check Network card information
The network card installed on our Linux system is one of the important components to connect the internet and other local networks. However, to know its model, manufacturer, and other information without operating the system’s case, use the below-given commands.
lspci | grep -i 'eth'
Find out the IP address and available active ethernet interfaces:
ip addr
Now, after using the above command you get the IP address and active ethernet interface, just use that with the below command. For example, ens33 is our interface.
ethtool ens33
The ethtool will show all information about the network card bandwidth such as what is the max speed, supported link modes, ports, and more…
To get network information we can also use Net-tools, however, we need to install it because by default it would not available on the system.
For Debian/Ubuntu: sudo ap tinstall net-tools
For RHEL/CentOS/Fedora– sudo yum install net-tools or sudo dnf install net-tools
To know Ipaddress:
ifconfig -a
For getting details of active connections, protocols, domain sockets, and more…
netstat -a
6. View PCI Slots information on Linux system
PCI slots, where we use graphic cards, network cards, and other third-party hardware directly on the Motherboard. To know about these PCI hardware slots run:
lspci
If you want more detailed information: lspci -v or lspci -vv
To see the device tree: lscpi -t
6. USB controllers and attached devices
View the details of USB slots and the devices plugged into them using lsusb command:
lsusb
To have detailed info on USB slots and their active devices use :
lsusb -v
7. Command to get complete Linux OS information
When we are running a Linux server and after upgrading or having installation, in case we want to know what version of Linux operating system we are using then, that is possible as well using the command terminal.
cat /etc/os-release or lsb_release -a
Get release info only:
cat /etc/issue
8. Command to get Linux Kernel Information
A kernel, which is the core part of our Linux system, to check out which version we on before updating or after, run:
cat /proc/version or uname -r
9. View Real-time processes
To go a bit further and know PID (Process ID, Unique number of the process) of the process executed on the system along with what is currently active we can use two commands:
To check out the PID (Process ID, Unique number of the process) of the process.
ps -ef
Real-time display of process status
top
A top is a text-based tool that gives complete information of currently active processes in real-time. To exit it, press Ctrl+C.
9. Complete Linux System Hardware Information
Here is the one final command that can give all the hardware information of your Linux system in a single shot. However, displaying all data in one place may feel clutter but if you don’t want to use multiple commands, then this one is for you.
sudo lshw
Those who want to omit the slight unwanted information can use the same command with a short flag.
sudo lshw -short
The good thing, if you want to print or save your Linux system hardware information in HTML format then that is also possible using lshw, simply run:
sudo lshw -html > lshw-info.html
ls
you will see the created file.
Now, open your browser and type or paste: file:///home/ubuntu/lshw-info.html
Closing thoughts:
So, these were some common commands we can use to find out Linux system info on CPU, Memory, OS, kernel, Network, and more. Although, these are not the only there are so many others, so keep searching this big world of Linux. If you know some commands to get a better view of the Linux system then the comment section is all yours…
