This software is designed to give comprehensive data on a computer's hardware configuration in a concise and easy-to-understand format.
Lshw (Hardware Lister) is a great tool for anyone who needs to know detailed information about the hardware configuration of their machine. With this software, you can find out the exact memory configuration, firmware version, CPU version and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, mainboard configuration, and more.
One of the best things about Lshw is that it can be used on DMI-capable x86 or EFI (IA-64) systems and some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is one of them). It supports a range of formats, including plain text, XML, and HTML. It's also capable of working with DMI (x86 and EFI only), OpenFirmware device tree (PowerPC only), PCI/AGP, ISA PnP (x86), CPUID (x86), IDE/ATA/ATAPI, PCMCIA (only tested on x86), USB, and SCSI.
To use Lshw, you must have a Linux 2.4.x or 2.6.x (2.2.x might work, though) operating system, and a PA-RISC, Alpha, IA-64 (Itanium), PowerPC, or x86 based machine. Additionally, you will need an ANSI (or close enough to ANSI compliance) C++ compiler (tested with g++ 2.95.4 and 3.2.2). For the (optional) GTK+ graphical user interface, you will need a complete GTK+ 2.4 development environment (gtk2-devel on RedHat/Fedora derivatives).
Installing Lshw is easy. Start by unpacking the source code: tar xvfz lshw-release.tar.gz. Then, compile it by navigating to the lshw-release directory and typing make. You can also build the optional GUI by typing make gui. If you want to build an RPM package, you can do so by typing rpmbuild -ta lshw-release.tar.gz. To include the optional GUI, type rpmbuild -ta --with gui lshw-release.tar.gz.
Once you've installed Lshw, using it is straightforward. Simply type lshw [format] [options...] where format can be -X to launch the GUI (if available), -html to activate HTML mode, -xml to activate XML mode, -short to print hardware paths, or -businfo to print bus information. Options can include -enable TEST to enable a test, -disable TEST to disable a test, -class CLASS to limit the output to a given class, or -C CLASS alias for -class CLASS.
It's worth noting that some of Lshw's features (like DMI on x86 platforms) require you to run it as root; otherwise, Lshw will only report partial information. Overall, Lshw is a reliable and handy tool that's easy to install and use.
One of the best things about Lshw is that it can be used on DMI-capable x86 or EFI (IA-64) systems and some PowerPC machines (PowerMac G4 is one of them). It supports a range of formats, including plain text, XML, and HTML. It's also capable of working with DMI (x86 and EFI only), OpenFirmware device tree (PowerPC only), PCI/AGP, ISA PnP (x86), CPUID (x86), IDE/ATA/ATAPI, PCMCIA (only tested on x86), USB, and SCSI.
To use Lshw, you must have a Linux 2.4.x or 2.6.x (2.2.x might work, though) operating system, and a PA-RISC, Alpha, IA-64 (Itanium), PowerPC, or x86 based machine. Additionally, you will need an ANSI (or close enough to ANSI compliance) C++ compiler (tested with g++ 2.95.4 and 3.2.2). For the (optional) GTK+ graphical user interface, you will need a complete GTK+ 2.4 development environment (gtk2-devel on RedHat/Fedora derivatives).
Installing Lshw is easy. Start by unpacking the source code: tar xvfz lshw-release.tar.gz. Then, compile it by navigating to the lshw-release directory and typing make. You can also build the optional GUI by typing make gui. If you want to build an RPM package, you can do so by typing rpmbuild -ta lshw-release.tar.gz. To include the optional GUI, type rpmbuild -ta --with gui lshw-release.tar.gz.
Once you've installed Lshw, using it is straightforward. Simply type lshw [format] [options...] where format can be -X to launch the GUI (if available), -html to activate HTML mode, -xml to activate XML mode, -short to print hardware paths, or -businfo to print bus information. Options can include -enable TEST to enable a test, -disable TEST to disable a test, -class CLASS to limit the output to a given class, or -C CLASS alias for -class CLASS.
It's worth noting that some of Lshw's features (like DMI on x86 platforms) require you to run it as root; otherwise, Lshw will only report partial information. Overall, Lshw is a reliable and handy tool that's easy to install and use.
What's New
Version B.02.14: N/A