How to Quickly Inspect Linux Hardware Details with Built‑In Commands

CPU

Use lscpu to display CPU statistics such as architecture, number of cores, threads per core, cache sizes, and virtualization support. Example output shows a single Intel i5‑7500 core with 3.4 GHz frequency. Detailed per‑CPU data can also be read from /proc/cpuinfo, which lists vendor, model, stepping, MHz, cache size, and other flags.

Memory

Summarize memory usage with free -m, which reports total, used, free, and cached memory in megabytes (e.g., 1970 MB total). For a deeper view, inspect /proc/meminfo to see values such as MemTotal, MemFree, Buffers, and Cached. Hardware limits and supported types are available via dmidecode -t memory, revealing maximum module size (32 GB), total capacity (491 GB), supported speeds, and voltage.

Disk

List block devices and partitions with lsblk, showing a 500 GB disk ( sda) with a swap partition and root filesystem. Detailed partition tables can be displayed using fdisk -l, which provides sector counts, sizes, and partition types.

Network Interface

Identify Ethernet controllers using lspci | grep -i eth. Show all network interfaces with ifconfig -a or ip link show. For interface capabilities, run ethtool ens33 to see supported link modes, speed (1000 Mb/s), duplex, auto‑negotiation, and link status.

PCI

Display all PCI devices with lspci, which lists host bridges, USB controllers, VGA cards, and network adapters. The output can be interpreted as a tree structure, illustrating how bridges connect devices across three PCI buses. Use lspci -v or lspci -vv for verbose details, and lspci -t to view the device hierarchy.

USB

List USB devices with lsusb, showing root hubs and virtual devices. The command lsusb -t prints the USB topology similar to cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/devices. Vendor and product IDs can be cross‑referenced in /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids to identify manufacturers such as Kingston.

All‑Hardware Summary

Generate a complete hardware overview in HTML format with lshw -html > /hardware.html. Opening the resulting file in a browser presents a structured view of CPU, memory, storage, network, and other components.

SCSI

Show SCSI controller and device information using lsscsi. The output lists virtual disks and CD/DVD drives; after inserting a USB drive, lsscsi will also display the new disk (e.g., a Kingston DataTraveler).

BIOS

Extract BIOS details with dmidecode -t bios, which reports vendor, version, release date, ROM size, and supported features such as ACPI, boot options, and legacy interfaces. For a concise dump of all useful DMI data, use dmidecode -q.