[kwlug-disc] 10 Linux features Windows should have by default | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

[Andrew Kohlsmith (Mailing List Account)]

On December 4, 2009 10:29:43 am Kyle Spaans wrote:
> That hardware *detection* is a good point. I haven't installed a Windows
>  system in a couple of years, but I do always remember it being hard to
>  find out hardware

I find it hard to install hardware on Windows, period. How many idiotic USB 
devices have this warning: "DO NOT PLUG IN DEVICE UNTIL AFTER YOU INSTALL 
THE SOFTWARE" ?  Printers are difficult to set up, fancy graphics cards are 
difficult to set up, and pretty much everything else is a snap, but it's 
equally easy on Linux.

The big exceptions are USB dongles with firmware squirrelled away in the 
Windows installer -- e.g. TV capture cards.

> details of my setup without special 3rd party tools.
> 
> What's available to to this in Linux?
> `dmesg`
> `cat /proc/cpuinfo`
> `lspci`
> (+ a bunch of GUI tools that I don't know about :P)

Don't forget dmidecode and lsusb.

Generally speaking my initial steps with figuring out what I'm dealing with 
are as follows:

uname -a
dmidecode
lspci
lsusb

After that I have a pretty good idea of what's on the system, and can drill 
down with a few -vs.  :-)

-A.