How To Get System Specifications For A Linux PC
One of the downsides of being a Linux user is that sometimes there’s no easy way to find system information. This statement is especially true when it comes to finding system specifications for a Linux PC. Many desktop environments on Linux have different ways to view this information. Additionally, different third-party apps help users look up their system specification.
For a new user looking to find the name of their CPU, what type of RAM they have, or graphics card model is installed, this can be quite frustrating. It is because of this annoying fact; we’ll be going over all of the ways you can get system specifications for a Linux PC easily.
Neofetch and Screenfetch
A speedy way to get a detailed readout of your entire Linux PC is to use a “system info” tool. These are terminal-based programs that run with a single command, and can give a detailed readout of everything from the type of CPU you have, the amount of RAM installed (and in use), the OS version, Linux Kernel version, your terminal shell, and much more.
To use one of these programs, you’ll first need to install it. Open up a terminal and enter the commands to get going. Both Neofetch and Screenfetch are installable on most Linux distributions. Search your package manager for both, and you’re bound to find at least one.
Ubuntu
sudo apt install neofetch
or
sudo apt install screenfetch
Debian
sudo apt-get install neofetch
or
sudo apt-get install screenfetch
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S neofetch
or
sudo pacman -S screenfetch
Fedora
sudo dnf install neofetch
or
sudo dnf install screenfetch
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper install screenfetch
Get System Specifications With Neofetch
To access system information through the Neofetch program, open up a terminal window. Inside the terminal, call the program:
neofetch
Give it a couple of seconds, and you’ll see a complete readout of your entire Linux PC, with detailed information about the CPU, GPU, RAM, etc.
Get System Specifications With Screenfetch
Screenfetch works a lot like Neofetch, though it’s not as good looking. To get system specifications for a Linux PC with this program, open up a terminal window and call the program.
screenfetch
Like Neofetch, Screenfetch will take a couple of seconds to gather system information. When finished, it will print out a detailed readout of your entire Linux system.
Getting System Specifications The Old Way
Programs like Neofetch and Screenfetch are useful, but it’s not the only way to grab detailed information on your Linux PC. It turns out that most Linux systems have files that any user can access to view system information. In this section of the guide, we’ll go over how to obtain this information and save it for later quickly.
Let’s start off with finding out the CPU info on Linux. In a terminal, run:
lscpu
The lscpu command can show information about everything there is to know regarding your CPU, the core count, speed, CPU model, etc. Need to save this information for later? Consider running it to a file.
lscpu >> ~/cpu-info.txt
The next tool, lshw can show information about your CPU, as well as a lot of other pieces of hardware. Just running lshw in the terminal will give a list of info.
If you’d like to isolate specific hardware in the list, combine it with -class.
For example, to view the amount of RAM on your PC, run:
sudo lshw -class memory
Need to separate the types of storage on your Linux PC? No problem, use -class storage.
sudo lshw -class storage
To save the entire output of lshw to a text file, do:
sudo lshw -class classname >> /home/username/Desktop/lshw-classname-info.txt
or
sudo lshw >> /home/username/Desktop/lshw.txt
Hardware information isn’t just for internal components like the CPU, etc. There is also the USB bus and PCI bus. To view information related to these two areas, you’ll need to make use of both lsusb and lspci. Let’s start with the PCI tool.
Using the lspci command is a lot like much of the other list-based tools on this list. To view the entire readout of every PCI device connected to your Linux PC, run:
lspci
You’ll notice quite a lot of different PCI devices, so to make it easier to sort through, consider adding the more command to it.
lspci | more
Using the enter key, move through the list.
Need to isolate a specific item? Use grep. For example, to separate the Nvidia PCI GPU in the list, you’d do:
lscpi | grep NVIDIA
To save the entire output of this command to a file, run this command.
lspci >> ~/lspci-list.txt
Lastly, the USB devices. Using lsusb is a lot like the lspci command, so not a lot of extra information is needed. To view USB devices in a long list, try running the command on it’s own:
lsusb
To make the list easier to navigate, add more at the end.
lsusb | more
Isolate different USB devices in the list using grep:
lsusb | grep "USB NAME"
Save everything to a file with:
lsusb >> ~/lsusb-info.txt
If you prefer to use a tool that has a GUI for viewing your system specifications, give Stacer a try.
