Learn how to – Check Computer Hardware information on Linux using lshw

Learn how to – Check Computer Hardware information on Linux using lshw.

Today I will share with you a tool that can help you check your hardware components and its core configuration settings. This tool is available for all Linux Distributions; Redhat, Centos, Ubuntu, Debian, Solaris, Arch Linux and others.  It is a Linux hardware utility which gives detailed information about the hardware installed on your machine.

The name of the utility is  lshw. lshw is a small tool to extract detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine. It can report exact  memory  configuration,  firmware  version, mainboard configuration, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc. on DMI-capable x86 or IA-64  systems and on some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is known to work).

There are other ways you can see hardware configuration of your Linux system like;

• /proc directory, and use of
• lspci: lspci is a utility for displaying information about PCI buses in the system and devices connected to them. By  default, it shows a brief list of devices.

Installing lshw package on Linux

The lshw utility is not shipped with base Linux installation. We’ll need to install the package manually and start using it.

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lshw

CentOS / Fedora / RHEL / Rocky / AlmaLinux

sudo yum -y install lshw

Arch / Manjaro / Garuda / EndeavourOS

sudo pacman -Syy lshw

Check Computer Hardware information on Linux using lshw

After installation of lshw tool, we can now use it to check our computer hardware information. The most used command options and formats are:

• -version – print program version
• -html output hardware tree as HTML
• -xml output hardware tree as XML
• -json output hardware tree as a JSON object
• -businfo output bus information
• -short output hardware paths

Let’s consider some examples to demonstrate how this utility works.

Output bus information:

$ sudo  lshw -businfo
Bus info          Device     Class          Description
=======================================================
                             system         OpenStack Compute
                             bus            Motherboard
                             memory         96KiB BIOS
cpu@0                        processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
cpu@1                        processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
cpu@2                        processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
cpu@3                        processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
                             memory         8GiB System Memory
                             memory         8GiB DIMM RAM
pci@0000:00:00.0             bridge         440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma]
pci@0000:00:01.0             bridge         82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II]
                             communication  PnP device PNP0501
                             input          PnP device PNP0303
                             input          PnP device PNP0f13
                             storage        PnP device PNP0700
                             system         PnP device PNP0b00
pci@0000:00:01.1             storage        82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II]
pci@0000:00:01.2             bus            82371SB PIIX3 USB [Natoma/Triton II]
usb@1             usb1       bus            UHCI Host Controller
usb@1:1           input5     input          QEMU QEMU USB Tablet
pci@0000:00:01.3             bridge         82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
pci@0000:00:02.0  /dev/fb0   display        GD 5446
pci@0000:00:03.0             network        Virtio network device
virtio@0          eth0       network        Ethernet interface
pci@0000:00:04.0             storage        Virtio block device
virtio@1          /dev/vda   disk           42GB Virtual I/O device
virtio@1,1        /dev/vda1  volume         1GiB Linux swap volume
virtio@1,2        /dev/vda2  volume         38GiB Linux filesystem partition
pci@0000:00:05.0             generic        Virtio memory balloon
virtio@2                     generic        Virtual I/O device
pci@0000:00:06.0             generic        Virtio RNG
virtio@3                     generic        Virtual I/O device
                  input0     input          Power Button
                  input1     input          AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
                  input3     input          VirtualPS/2 VMware VMMouse
                  input4     input          VirtualPS/2 VMware VMMouse
                  input6     input          PC Speaker

Output hardware paths:

$ sudo lshw -short
H/W path        Device     Class          Description
=====================================================
                           system         OpenStack Compute
/0                         bus            Motherboard
/0/0                       memory         96KiB BIOS
/0/400                     processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
/0/401                     processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
/0/402                     processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
/0/403                     processor      Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
/0/1000                    memory         8GiB System Memory
/0/1000/0                  memory         8GiB DIMM RAM
/0/100                     bridge         440FX - 82441FX PMC [Natoma]
/0/100/1                   bridge         82371SB PIIX3 ISA [Natoma/Triton II]
/0/100/1/0                 communication  PnP device PNP0501
/0/100/1/1                 input          PnP device PNP0303
/0/100/1/2                 input          PnP device PNP0f13
/0/100/1/3                 storage        PnP device PNP0700
/0/100/1/4                 system         PnP device PNP0b00
/0/100/1.1                 storage        82371SB PIIX3 IDE [Natoma/Triton II]
/0/100/1.2                 bus            82371SB PIIX3 USB [Natoma/Triton II]
/0/100/1.2/1    usb1       bus            UHCI Host Controller
/0/100/1.2/1/1  input5     input          QEMU QEMU USB Tablet
/0/100/1.3                 bridge         82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI
/0/100/2        /dev/fb0   display        GD 5446
/0/100/3                   network        Virtio network device
/0/100/3/0      eth0       network        Ethernet interface
/0/100/4                   storage        Virtio block device
/0/100/4/0      /dev/vda   disk           42GB Virtual I/O device
/0/100/4/0/1    /dev/vda1  volume         1GiB Linux swap volume
/0/100/4/0/2    /dev/vda2  volume         38GiB Linux filesystem partition
/0/100/5                   generic        Virtio memory balloon
/0/100/5/0                 generic        Virtual I/O device
/0/100/6                   generic        Virtio RNG
/0/100/6/0                 generic        Virtual I/O device
/1              input0     input          Power Button
/2              input1     input          AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
/3              input3     input          VirtualPS/2 VMware VMMouse
/4              input4     input          VirtualPS/2 VMware VMMouse
/5              input6     input          PC Speaker

Print output in:

HTML:

sudo lshw -html

JSON:

sudo lshw -json

XML:

sudo lshw -xml