Linux Command To Find the System Configuration And Hardware Information

by nixCraft on August 2, 2007 · 48 comments· LAST UPDATED June 13, 2013

What is the command to find the system configuration on Linux operating system using command line (text) mode?

On Linux based system most of the hardware information can be extracted from /proc file system, for example display CPU and Memory information, enter:

Tutorial details
Difficulty	Intermediate (rss)
Root privileges	Yes
Requirements	None
Estimated completion time	10 minutes

cat /proc/meminfo cat /proc/cpuinfo

The following list summarizes commands to get various hardware from the system:

Linux cpu/hardware information

Use any one of the following command:
# less /proc/cpuinfo
OR
# lscpu

Linux show free and used memory in the system

Use any one of the following command:
# cat /proc/meminfo
OR
# free # free -m # free -mt # free -gt

Linux find out the current running kernel version

Type the following command:
# cat /proc/version
Sample outputs:

Linux version 3.2.0-43-generic (buildd@batsu) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) ) #68-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 15 03:33:33 UTC 2013

OR use
# uname -mrs # uname -a

Find out information about the Linux distribution and version

# lsb_release -a
Sample outputs:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS
Release:	12.04
Codename:	precise

OR use the following command:
$ cat /etc/*release*
Sample outputs:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago)

List all PCI devices

# lspci

List all USB devices

# lsusb

List all block devices (hard disks, cdrom, and others)

# lsblk

Dump all hardware information

Type the following command to see your motherboard, cpu, vendor, serial-numbers, RAM, disks, and other information directly from the system BIOS:
# dmidecode | less
See the complete list of Linux command to gathers up information about a Linux system

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{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Venu February 15, 2008 at 6:37 am: Very useful commands. Thank you…
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2 prash October 15, 2008 at 9:28 am: Nice commands, very useful.
Thank you.
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3 pavan February 3, 2009 at 9:25 am: Nice commands
Thanks for the help
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4 Chetan Saxena February 9, 2009 at 3:47 pm: Thanks Vivek Gite !
It was very useful for me..
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5 sud February 23, 2009 at 12:39 pm: very useful command
thanks
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6 rajkumar March 5, 2009 at 11:05 am: Thanks a lot helped me al ot
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7 D.veera March 11, 2009 at 9:13 am: this commands very useful for me.
thanks
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8 srinu m April 6, 2009 at 10:11 am: Thanx for providing linux commands
it is very helpful to linux users.
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9 siva April 6, 2009 at 7:02 pm: very useful
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10 Kasun April 26, 2009 at 6:25 am: thanks,
also i need to find what FTP server is installed on my Remote Web Server via SSH,
can you provide command for that?
Thanks
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11 A.Karthic Kumar May 6, 2009 at 6:19 am: Thank You,
It was very useful to me
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12 Kailash Murari May 20, 2009 at 6:36 am: Helped me a-lot, Thanks for these commands.
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13 Chetan Saxena July 10, 2009 at 11:11 am: I got here what i was searching for.
Thanks.
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14 noor August 25, 2009 at 12:07 pm: Thank your for your help.
and very usefull
Best Regards.
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15 sarfaraz August 26, 2009 at 9:31 am: Thank you sir verry helpful command
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16 Srinivas October 7, 2009 at 6:52 pm: Very useful info. The precise question and answer are provided.
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17 Khetra April 13, 2010 at 4:37 am: Hi Mr. Gite,
Thank You, very useful information.
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18 rissadum June 26, 2010 at 1:41 pm: nice commands, thanks alot
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19 shabeer June 26, 2010 at 5:18 pm: Thank you very much .It is very useful
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20 Arun July 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm: Thanks for the useful cmd
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21 samir July 2, 2010 at 10:06 am: Thanks for this command.
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22 semmalraja August 4, 2010 at 12:02 pm: very useful for me… thanks ya….
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23 Jaydeep September 20, 2010 at 9:53 am: hey not useful for me…!
I want some command which will tell me hw much graphics memory do I have and how much graphical memory is being used by a particular application…!
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24 dozor October 6, 2010 at 2:17 pm: try lshw
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25 Rushikesh October 14, 2010 at 10:31 am: thanks ..
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26 M.r DEBNATH January 18, 2011 at 8:56 am: Very usefull……..
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27 sandya February 19, 2011 at 10:02 am: The command was good enough,but we can even try with the most simple command:’top’
will give the information,of both the cpu and memory information.
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28 Praveen Adiga March 9, 2011 at 8:16 am: Good One
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29 Sudharshana March 17, 2011 at 10:24 am: Very userful commands
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30 Sagar Shedge April 12, 2011 at 5:06 am: It is really very good source of information related to system h/w.
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31 naba April 20, 2011 at 8:25 am: very useful command thanks!
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32 Ajee kumar N April 29, 2011 at 7:31 am: Thanks.. its very useful.. and we can use lshw and top commands….
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33 Srinivas September 28, 2011 at 7:46 pm: Information is very helpful. Thank You
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34 Shalmal October 19, 2011 at 1:39 pm: was very userful Thank u
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35 santhosh kumar routhu December 21, 2011 at 9:36 pm: Thanks you very much that’s fine command for see all information about hardware:
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36 MOTE PANDURANG January 28, 2012 at 4:28 am: this is useful information to us
Thank You
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37 Lars-Andreas February 10, 2012 at 10:28 am: I Tried to “vim” the files rather than “cat”ing them. I found that to be a bit more informal, but thats just my opinion. Thank you for the help anyways!
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38 hanumanth March 12, 2012 at 7:03 am: thanks lot for your good service its more helpfull to who r searching cpu and mem information,,,,
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39 Durga Prasad (DP) April 3, 2012 at 5:25 am: Very Usefull Command. But i think its not working in Fedora .. it is saying ” NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY “
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40 Amolraje May 29, 2012 at 5:14 am: Thanks,
Generaly his command is very useful.
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41 Abrar June 5, 2012 at 6:29 am: Thanks for the good work :)
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42 vishwanath nair June 10, 2012 at 2:55 am: Thanks for system info command
Linux Command to find the system configuration and hardware information
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43 amit July 6, 2012 at 5:37 am: very easy way to know system info in linux
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44 Deepak July 19, 2012 at 9:34 am: I am looking for the discovery tools(on Linux ) , should find me the following information,
1.Number of servers, for each server determine the OS and the hardware configuration (RAM, CPU, and current utilization of CPU/RAM)
2. Application stack running on the server
a. Database servers
b. Java applications
c. C/C++ applications
d. Other Enterprise applications
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45 sizins August 26, 2012 at 4:26 pm: sudo dmidecode
Will give u all h/w info
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46 swapnil December 18, 2012 at 6:44 am: Thank You…>>!!!
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47 Ajay February 4, 2013 at 5:15 am: Really handy…Thanks
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48 Prashant June 13, 2013 at 7:15 am: Good command , Helpfull
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