Intro

Intro

Inventory and inspect physical devices: whole-system reports, PCI devices, DMI/SMBIOS data, and disk identity/timings. Use before opening tickets or swapping hardware.

Commands in this part

Command	Role
lshw	lshw (list hardware) probes the system and prints a hardware tree: CPU, memory, storage, network, firmware, and buses.
lspci	lspci lists PCI and PCI Express devices: NICs, GPUs, storage controllers, USB controllers, bridges, and more.
dmidecode	dmidecode dumps DMI/SMBIOS tables: manufacturer, product name, serial numbers, BIOS version, memory slot population,…
hdparm	hdparm gets and sets ATA/SATA disk parameters: identify data, power management, read-ahead, write-cache, and…

Suggested starting points

1. Broad inventory: lshw.
2. PCI devices: lspci.
3. Firmware/DMI: dmidecode.
4. Disk identity/timings: hdparm (SMART health is under Storage: smartctl).

Related parts

• System information — quick CPU/memory summaries
• Storage and filesystems — block devices and SMART
• Services and runtime — kernel modules via modprobe/lsmod

Continue with the individual command pages in this part.