System information about a linux computer. The rugged Pico-ITX SBC runs Linux on a low power i.MX6 UL. Tracing library calls
Let's look at some useful commands and utilities with which you can get information about hardware in Linux. Such a need arises, for example, when you need to install a driver for some computer device and you need to know its exact name. Or, for example, you want to get information about the occupied memory or computer resources.
Processor Information (CPU)
You can get all the necessary information about the central processor in Linux by running the command in the terminal:
Cat / proc / cpuinfo
To determine if your processor is 32-bit or 64-bit, you need to look at the flags that are indicated in the command output. If among the flags there is lm (long mode), this means your processor is 64-bit. For example, when executing the command cat / proc / cpuinfo we can get the following flags:
Flags: fpu vme de acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon ...
PCI device information (video card information)
Using the command lspci you can display all information about PCI devices:
This command is often used to get information about a video card. Since the command output is lspci large enough, you can use the command grepto set the search term. For example, if we know that we have an Nvidia video card, then we can use the command:
Lspci | grep nVidia
And as a result, you get something like:
01: 00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72M (rev a1)
Please note that the grep command is case-sensitive and therefore, if you did not find what you were looking for the first time, then you should try another spelling, for example, nvidia, NVIDIA or simply idia... Similarly, you can search for information in the output of any other commands by adding to the command: " | grep search-string.
Information about the driver version for Nvidia video cards in Linux can be obtained by running:
Cat / proc / driver / nvidia / version
Random access memory (RAM) information
To get information about the volume, as well as the amount of free and used RAM, you can use the command:
Free -t -m
Information about virtual memory can be obtained with the command vmstat:
If you need more detailed information about the processes occupying RAM, about the processor (CPU) load, then you can use the Top or htop utilities. The top utility is usually always present on Linux. To run it, just run:
Hard disk information
Information about hard disk partitions in Linux:
Sudo fdisk -l
Information about mounted partitions, the amount of free and used memory:
There is another useful command du, which displays information about the size of each file in the current and subdirectories. If you want to get information about all files in the current directory, run the command without parameters:
As a parameter, you can set the file name, for example, to find out the file size abc.bin run:
Du abc.bin
Information about USB devices and USB buses
To display information about USB buses and connected USB devices, use the command lsusb:
Non-console programs
Consider a few graphics programs that will help you when working with equipment.
The Gnome desktop environment provides a graphical System monitor utility. It displays information about CPU usage, running processes (applications), information about hard drives, and also displays graphs, including network usage. From the command line, you can run it by running:
Gnome-system-monitor
To work with hard drives, you can use the GParted program. 
Additional Information
Finally, it is worth mentioning a very important team lshw, which displays almost all information about your computer. The team lshw you need to run as root:
Sudo lshw
To display brief information, the key is used -short:
Sudo lshw -short
For more information on the commands described in this article, use the Linux help system. To do this, in the console you need to run:
Man command-name
For example, to get all information about a team du, run the command.
If you have a need to find out what is hidden from your eyes inside a computer running Linux (we will consider the methods that work in Linux Mint and Ubuntu), then doing this is no more difficult than in Windows, and sometimes even easier. There are several methods for this, which we propose to consider in this article.
Let's start with perhaps the most familiar method for an ordinary user, inexperienced with all the delights of the Linux OS. Let's imagine that you have switched to Linux relatively recently, and have not completely lost the habit of Windows that you are used to.
In Windows, to find out detailed information about the hardware, users usually use special programs, such as AIDA64 and similar. We assure you that Linux is not left out in this regard. It may not contain such a variety of similar programs, but there will definitely be those that will provide you with a full report on the configuration of your computer.
One of these programs is HardInfo (after installation it appears in the menu as System Profiler and Benchmark). With the help of this utility, you can get the most complete picture of the hardware "stuffing" of your computer hiding from you. You can install it from your distribution's repository.
HardInfo Program in Linux Mint 18 Sarah Mate
The program presents in an accessible graphic form the main points on which you can get information. You just need to click on the desired icon and the program will display the main characteristics of the system.
HardInfo. Information about the memory installed in the computer.
The program also provides for the creation of a report in html format, which you can then view in a browser. To do this, you need to click "Generate Report", select the items for which you want to see the report and wait for the result.
HTML report generated in the HardInfo program.
Despite all its advantages, the HardInfo program provides more meager results than what you get with the terminal and a few commands.
First, let's give the utility lshw To install it, you need to enter in the terminal: sudo apt-get install lshw After installation, in order to find out the characteristics of the system, just enter the command in the terminal sudo lshw
Output of sudo lshw command in terminal.
As you can see, the list is very long. In order to shorten it, you can enter the command sudo lshw -short The list will be shorter and more compact.
Output of sudo lshw -short command in terminal.
There is also another variation of this command, which will allow you to view the complete list, but at the same time you will load it as needed: sudo lshw | more
This is the result after entering the command in the terminal sudo lshw | more (now all you have to do is press the Enter key and read the output).
To generate a report in html format, enter the command lshw -html\u003e hardware.html (in this case, the report will be saved in the user's folder - the one where the Downloads, Music, etc. folders are located).
It should be mentioned that the system has a / proc / folder, which also contains information about the hardware of your computer. For example, we will give several related commands that, when typed in the terminal, will display the information of interest to us:
cat / proc / cpuinfo - will display information about the processor
cat / proc / meminfo - will display information about RAM
cat / proc / partitions - will display information about hard disk partitions
We hope that this information will help you uncover the secrets of the inner world of your Linux PC.
How can I find out the characteristics of a computer in Linux? updated: January 21, 2017 by the author: Maxim Ivanov
You may need to collect all the available information about the Ubuntu system and hardware if you have a new computer or laptop and are wondering what hardware is there. It may also be necessary if you need to replace any component, for example, a hard drive. Well, or even just like that. To replace equipment, you need to know all the information in advance. Also, information about the Ubuntu hardware may be needed if you are going to configure Wifi, Bluetooth, webcam or install drivers for a video card.
In this article, I will list the commands with which information about the Ubuntu operating system can be obtained. All commands have been tested on Ubuntu 16.04, but should work on any modern distribution like Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc.
Find out the hostname
The easiest way to find out the hostname of your machine is with the hostname command:
cat / etc / hostname
If you have a server, you can see the domain name of the host determined by DNS:
The fully qualified domain name of the host (FQDN) can be viewed with the command:
server01.site
Find the manufacturer, serial number
If you have a laptop, you can get information such as the manufacturer, serial number, and other information about the Ubuntu hardware, encoded in dmi:
sudo dmidecode -s system-serial-number
$ sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
$ sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
See all available information with the command:
sudo dmidecode | more
You can also use the lshw command, in some distributions you will have to install it:
sudo lshw | more
$ sudo lshw -short
Information about connected equipment
The command will show all connected equipment, used PCI and USB ports, etc.
Processor information
Information about the linux processor is readily available too:
cat / proc / cpuinfo
processor: 0
vendor_id: AuthenticAMD
cpu family: 16
model: 6
model name: AMD Athlon (tm) II X2 250 Processor
stepping: 3
microcode: 0x10000c8
cpu MHz: 2300.000
CPU usage statistics
You can view the processor load with the command:
21:56:27 CPU% usr% nice% sys% iowait% irq% soft% steal% guest% gnice% idle
21:56:27 all 18.27 0.33 5.26 2.01 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 74.10
You may need to install the utility by installing the sysstat package.
Memory information
You can view statistics on memory usage in the system with the command:
less / proc / meminfo
MemTotal: 6109876 kB
MemFree: 188544 kB
MemAvailable: 2117964 kB
Buffers: 254120 kB
Cached: 1595932 kB
If you do not need such detailed information, you can get information about linux with the free command.
Display memory information in megabytes:
In gigabytes:
In readable form:
Swap information
You can see if the swap partition is connected and how big it is with the commands:
Virtual memory information
sudo vmstat
$ sudo vmstat 1
$ sudo vmstat 2
Distribution version
The command will show the version and name of the distribution, as well as some additional information, this is important information about the linux operating system:
Kernel version
The kernel is the most important component of the system. Information about the Ubuntu system, namely the kernel version, is available using the uname command.
uname -r
$ uname -a
Linux dhcppc0 4.1.15-8-default # 1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Jan 20 16:41:00 UTC 2016 (0e3b3ab) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU / Linux
Kernel startup parameters
cat / proc / cmdline
$ sysctl -a | more
System architecture
uname -m
$ getconf LONG_BIT
$ arch
Hard disk information
We look at the connected hard drives:
fdisk -l | grep "^ Disk / dev"
Disk / dev / sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk / dev / sdb: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
We look at the partitions on a specific disk:
fdisk -l / dev / sda
Find out the disk label:
sudo fdisk / dev / sda
$ sudo e2label / dev / sda1
$ sudo cfdisk / dev / sda
Information about block devices
Block device attributes:
List of all block devices:
Free disk space
Ubuntu System Information includes disk information. Display the used space of all drives:
df
$ df -H
$ df -HT
Show size of files in home folder:
du
$ du / home
Mounted disks
View all monitored file systems:
cat / proc / mount
$ mount
SCSI devices
Display parameters of SCSI devices connected to the system:
I / O statistics:
sudo iostat
$ sudo iostat 2
PCI Device Information
PCI devices are all devices connected to the computer's motherboard, such as a processor, network card, wireless adapter, and so on. In fact, you can look at the Ubuntu hardware by looking at the pci devices.
lspci
$ lspci -vt
$ lspci | grep -i "device"
$ lspci -vvvn | less
USB information
In addition to PCI devices, there are also external USB, these are printers, Bluetooth adapter, mouse, keyboard. This is also important information about the Ubuntu computer.
lsusb
$ lsusb -vt
Information about wireless network adapters
The model and manufacturer of the network adapter can be viewed through lscpi, but you cannot find out more detailed information about the settings and supported functions, there are commands for this:
iwconfig
$ watch -n 1 cat / proc / net / wireless
$ wavemon
$ iw list
Graphics card information
lspci | grep -i vga
$ lspci -vvnn | grep VGA
sudo lshw -class display
NVIDIA graphics card information
If proprietary drivers are installed, information about the video card can be viewed with the command:
This will provide more detailed information about the Ubuntu machine than the normal lspci output.
ATI Readon Graphics Card Information
For the command to work, the ATI driver must be installed:
Unity version
Audio device information
lspci | grep -i audio
cat / proc / asound / cards
Battery status
On a laptop, we may need to see the battery status:
upower -i / org / freedesktop / UPower / devices / battery_BAT0
$ acpi -V
System uptime
uptime
uptime
$ cat / proc / loadavg
$ sudo top
$ sudo htop
$ sudo atop
Shutdown and reboot history
last reboot
$ last shutdown
Current RunLevel
RunLevel is the runlevel in the SysVinit init system.
runlevel
$ who -r
Viewing the kernel log
Very useful information about the Ubuntu computer, information about errors and problems is in the kernel log:
sudo less / var / log / dmesg
$ sudo grep "regx" / var / log / dmesg
$ sudo grep "d" / var / log / dmesg
Loaded kernel modules
sudo lsmod
$ sudo modinfo _____ module_name ___
Network information
View local ip address and other information about network interfaces:
sudo ip a
$ sudo ip
$ sudo ip link ls up
$ sudo ifconfig -a
View only eth0 interface info:
sudo ip a show eth0
$ sudo ifconfig eth0
View routing table:
sudo ip r
$ sudo route -n
$ sudo netstat -nr
View network bridges:
sudo brctl show
$ sudo bridge link
DNS server information
The addresses of the DNS servers with which the system works are located in the /etc/resolv.conf file:
cat /etc/resolv.conf
DNS system settings are located in /etc/host.conf file
cat /etc/host.conf
Socket information
We look at open network and local sockets:
All listening ports:
sudo netstat -tulpn
$ sudo netstat -tulpn | grep LISTEN
We look at all TCP sockets:
UDP sockets:
We look at the files open in the system:
lsof | more
$ lsof | grep something
$ lsof / dev / sda2
Service information
We look at all running services. In SysVinit:
sudo service --status-all
sudo initctl list
Check if the service is loaded automatically:
sudo initctl status service-name
$ sudo initctl status smbd
sudo service service_name status
$ sudo service nginx status
View log files
cd / var / log
$ ls -l
$ tail -f / var / log / filename
$ grep "what_needed" / var / log / filename
Search for a file by name
With Locate:
locate filename
$ locate passwd
$ locate exchange.doc
With find:
find (/ folder_where_search) -name (filename) -print
$ find / etc / -name / etc / passwd -print
$ find $ HOME -name "* .doc" -print
User information
less / etc / passwd
$ grep userName / etc / passwd
$ getent passwd
Group information
less / etc / group
$ getent group
$ grep group_name / etc / group
$ groups username
Password information
chage -l username
$ chage -l root
$ chage -l vivek
sudo top
$ sudo htop
$ sudo atop
$ sudo ps auxwww
$ sudo netstat options
$ sudo iostat
$ sudo mpstat 1
$ sudo sar options
Tracing programs
strace -o output.txt / bin / foo
$ strace -p 22254 -s 80 -o debug.nginx.txt
Tracing library calls
sudo ltrace / usr / sbin / httpd
$ sudo ltrace / sbin / chroot / usr / sbin / httpd
Process information
sudo pstree
$ sudo pstree | less
$ sudo ps auxwwwm
$ ps alxwww
$ ps auxwww
$ lsof -b M -n -l
Change the priority of the process:
sudo / bin / nice -n -1 process name
$ sudo / bin / nice -n -1 pid
$ sudo renice __ priority ___ pid
Process CPU usage:
sudo taskset -p pid
$ sudo taskset -p 42
Welcome all!
In this article I will tell you how to view information about the system, find out what processes (programs) are running, what kind of load they put on the computer. And also how to quickly find files and folders in the system, if you need to clean up disk space.
In order to view all information about the computer and the system in Windows, you need to install the Aida64 program. We considered how to do this in our article How to get complete information about computer devices using Aida64!
In Ubuntu, all this is already on the system by default. In order to view this information, open a terminal and run the following command.
To obtain additional privileges, you must enter the user's password and press the "Enter" key on the keyboard.
Let's slightly supplement the previous command.
sudo lshw -html\u003e system_info.html
And the system_info.html file appeared in the home directory, which we can view in any Internet browser.
Having opened this file, we see information about the system in a convenient form.
View running processes on the system, CPU, memory and network usage. All this information can be viewed in the "System Monitor". To open, click on the icon in the upper left corner of the "Search on computer ..." screen. In the search box, enter "gnome-system" and select the "System Monitor" program by clicking the left mouse button.
In the window that opens, we see the running processes.
To sort the processes by CPU load, left-click on the "% CPU" field.
On the "Resources" tab, we see information on processor, memory and network usage presented in graphical form.
On the "File systems" tab, we see information on the disks used in the system. And what percentage are they used.
For more detailed information on the location of files in folders on the disk, as well as to answer the question "Who took all the space?"
Let's use another program called Disk Usage Analyzer. In the search box, enter "disk" and select the "Disk Usage Analyzer" program by clicking the left mouse button.
Let's analyze the files in our user's home folder. We select it by clicking on it with the left mouse button.
On the right side of the window that opens, we see all files and folders located in the home folder of our user.
The Downloads folder is 77.2 MB. We see the same information graphically in the right part of the window. If we need to free up disk space, then open the folder in Nautilus and after removing unnecessary files, return to the "Disk Usage Analyzer". And to update the information, click the update button in the upper right corner.
In the next .cache folder, we see that it is 55MB.
ATTENTION!
Folders starting with a period are hidden and, by default, are not visible in Nautilus Explorer. And deleting any information from them can lead to the fact that installed programs stop working. Therefore, if you are not sure, then it is better not to delete anything from them.
Therefore, we will not delete the files and folders stored in it.
For further analysis and quick search, we can quickly view the folder name and its size by hovering the mouse pointer over the block of interest in the pie chart.
We looked at information about the system, running processes (programs). We also discussed how to work with the Disk Usage Analyzer program. And if there are any incomprehensible questions on this topic and there are suggestions, then please write them in the comments. Bye everyone!
