hwinfo(8) probe for hardware

SYNOPSIS

hwinfo [ OPTIONS ]

DESCRIPTION

hwinfo is used to probe for the hardware present in the system. It can be used to generate a system overview log which can be later used for support.

OPTIONS

Note that running hwinfo without any options is roughly equivalent to 'hwinfo --all --log=-'.
--<HARDWARE_ITEM>
This option can be given more than once. Probe for a particular HARDWARE_ITEM. Available hardware items are:

all, arch, bios, block, bluetooth, braille, bridge, camera, cdrom, chipcard, cpu, disk, dsl, dvb, fingerprint, floppy, framebuffer, gfxcard, hub, ide, isapnp, isdn, joystick, keyboard, memory, modem, monitor, mouse, netcard, network, partition, pci, pcmcia, pcmcia-ctrl, pppoe, printer, redasd, reallyall, scanner, scsi, smp, sound, storage-ctrl, sys, tape, tv, uml, usb, usb-ctrl, vbe, wlan, xen, zip

Note that if this option is missing, no hardware probing will be done!

--short
Show only a summary. Use this option in addition to a hardware probing option.
--listmd
Normally hwinfo does not report RAID devices. Add this option to see them.
--only DEVNAME
This option can be given more than once. If you add this option only entries in the device list matching DEVNAME will be shown. Note that you also have to specify --<HARDWARE_ITEM> to trigger any device probing.
--save-config SPEC
Store config for a particular device below /var/lib/hardware. SPEC can be a device name, an UDI, or 'all'. This option must be given in addition to a hardware probing option.
--show-config UDI
Show saved config data for a particular device.
--map
If disk names have changed (e.g. after a kernel update) this prints a list of disk name mappings. Note that you must have used --save-config at some point before for this can work.
--debug N
Set debug level to N. The debug info is shown only in the log file. If you specify a log file, the debug level is implicitly set to a reasonable value (N is a bitmask of individual flags).
--verbose
Increase verbosity. Only together with --map.
--log FILE
Write log info to FILE. Don't forget to also specify --<HARDWARE_ITEM> to trigger any device probing.
--dump-db N
Dump hardware data base. N is either 0 for the external data base in /var/lib/hardware, or 1 for the internal data base.
--version
Print libhd version.
--help
Print usage.

ENVIRONMENT

hwprobe can hold a comma-separated list of probing flags preceded by '+' or '-' to be turned on or off. To get a complete list of supported flags, run 'hwinfo -all' (note: not '--all') and look at the top of the output.

hwinfo also looks at /proc/cmdline for a hwprobe option.

EXAMPLES

- show all disks
hwinfo --disk
- just an overview
hwinfo --short --block
- show a particular disk
hwinfo --disk --only /dev/sdb
- save disk config state
hwinfo --disk --save-config=all
- try 4 graphics card ports for monitor data (default: 3)
hwprobe=bios.ddc.ports=4 hwinfo --monitor

FILES

/var/lib/hardware/hd.ids
External hardware data base (in readable text form). Try the --dump-db option to see the format.
/var/lib/hardware/udi
Directory where persistent config data are stored (see --save-config option).

BUGS

Not all hardware can be detected.