System diagnostics and awesomeness

For parties interested in this, here are some neat little tricks I have found lately that have really helped debug problems.

dmidecode

This nifty little progam gives you a lot of really nice info about your motherboard and hardware on your system (say if you are trying to find drivers). Output looks like this (using dmidecode -q)


bperry@w00den-pickle:~$ sudo dmidecode -q
BIOS Information
Vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version: 6.00 PG
Release Date: 01/19/2006
Address: 0xE0000
Runtime Size: 128 kB
ROM Size: 512 kB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/360 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported

System Information
Manufacturer:
Product Name:
Version:
Serial Number:
UUID: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-00508D49B91E
Wake-up Type: Power Switch

Base Board Information
Manufacturer: http://www.abit.com.tw/
Product Name: AN8 Series(NF-CK804)
Version: 1.x
Serial Number:

Another nice one is hwinfo. In conjunction with dmidecode, these can become quite powerful tools. Printout of hwinfo --short below:


bperry@w00den-pickle:~$ hwinfo --short
cpu:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+, 2200 MHz
keyboard:
/dev/input/event1 AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
mouse:
/dev/input/mice Apple Macintosh mouse button emulation
graphics card:
nVidia GeForce 6600 GT
sound:
Creative CT4850 SBLive! Value
storage:
Floppy disk controller
Promise Ultra100
ABIT CK804 Serial ATA Controller
ABIT CK804 Serial ATA Controller
ABIT CK804 IDE
IDE interface
network:
eth0 ABIT CK804 Ethernet Controller
network interface:
eth0 Ethernet network interface
lo Loopback network interface
disk:
/dev/sdb MAXTOR 6L080L4
/dev/sda WDC WD2500JB-00R
partition:
/dev/sdb1 Partition
/dev/sda1 Partition
/dev/sda2 Partition
/dev/sda5 Partition
cdrom:
/dev/sr0 SONY DVD RW AW-G170A
usb controller:
ABIT CK804 USB Controller
ABIT CK804 USB Controller
bios:
BIOS
bridge:
AMD K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
AMD K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
AMD K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
AMD K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
nVidia CK804 PCIE Bridge
nVidia CK804 PCIE Bridge
nVidia CK804 PCIE Bridge
nVidia CK804 PCIE Bridge
nVidia CK804 PCI Bridge
ABIT CK804 ISA Bridge
hub:
Linux 2.6.24-17-generic ohci_hcd OHCI Host Controller
Linux 2.6.24-17-generic ehci_hcd EHCI Host Controller
memory:
Main Memory
firewire controller:
ABIT TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
unknown:
FPU
DMA controller
PIC
Timer
RTC
Keyboard controller
Creative Gameport Joystick
ABIT CK804 SMBus
ABIT CK804 Memory Controller
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
PnP Unclassified device
/dev/input/input2 Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse
bperry@w00den-pickle:~$

Happy debugging!