[NBLUG/talk] What's my video card?

[Eric Eisenhart]

On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 09:34:55PM -0700, Doug Miller wrote:
> Hi,
>  I'm trying to install MPlayer, and the README says I need the make and 
> model of my video card, so that I can look up special drivers that will 
> optimize my video experience.  Can I do this from the command 
> line/keyboard, without opening the case and pulling the card?

Run this command:
lspci | grep VGA

>  And a related question; is there a file, or a directory, that contains 
> all the hardware  in my
> system? Something I could print out as a  Hardware configuration log?  
> Maybe I should ask:
> "How do I make a  Hardware configuration log?"

Uhm...

If you're running a redhat-based distribution or otherwise have "kudzu"
installed, you can look at /etc/sysconfig/hwconf .
You can run "lspci" to see what's on the PCI bus (you can usually ignore all
the bridges).  You can run "lsusb" to see what USB devices are hooked up. 
"cdrecord -scanbus" will show you scsi devices, as well as anything that
pretends to be scsi (such as atapi cd burners, some firewire devices, some
usb devices, some sata setups, etc...).  Or you can peek directly into
/proc/scsi/scsi to see those.  "cat /proc/ide/*/model" to see some IDE
devices...

Some redhat distributions had a "sysreport" utility available that would
generate a report along the lines of what you mean.
-- 
Eric Eisenhart
NBLUG Co-Founder & Director-At-Large
The North Bay Linux Users Group
http://nblug.org/
eric at nblug.org, IRC: Freiheit at freenode, AIM: falschfreiheit, ICQ: 48217244