The hwinfo command is a very handy command line tool that can be used to check details about hardware components. It reports information about most hardware units including cpu, hdd controllers, usb controllers, network card, graphics cards, multimedia, printers etc. Hwinfo depends on the libhd library to gather hardware information which depends on libhal.

Here at Ibmi Media, as part of our Server Management Services, we regularly help our Customers to perform related Linux Commands System queries.

In this context, we shall look into how to use the hwinfo command in Linux.

How to Install hwinfo in Linux ?

To get hwinfo installed on your Linux system, simply Run apt command shown below:

$ sudo apt install hwinfo

hwinfo command syntax

The syntax of hwinfo command is:

$ hwinfo [options]

The [options] gives:

1. –help explains how to use the command:

$ hwinfo –help

2. You can run the command without [options] to display information about all hardware units:

$ hwinfo

3. –short display summary information:

$ hwinfo --short

4. –cpu display CPU information:

$ hwinfo --short --cpu

5. delete –short to display detailed information

6. –network display network interface information:

$ hwinfo --network

7. –netcard display network card information:

$ hwinfo --netcard

8. –disk display disk information:

$ hwinfo --disk

9. –usb display USB device controllers information:

$ hwinfo --usb

10. –storage display hard drive controllers information:

$ hwinfo --storage

How to Display multiple devices together ?

To display information on multiple devices at the same time, just add all the options.

For example, We want to display information of USB device, network, disk:

$ hwinfo --usb --network --disk

How to Export information to a file ?

If you want to export detailed information:

$ hwinfo --log hwinfo.txt

If you want to export summary information, add –short option:

$ hwinfo --short --log hwinfo.txt

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