lshw

is a Linux command which provides details of all the hardware in your PC. The details provided by the lshw command run the gamut of processors, memory, slots, onboard sound, video chipset and more.

To install, just run:

$ sudo apt-get install lshw

To get the full details of your hardware, you need to run lshw command as root (or super user). If you are using Ubuntu or any of its derivatives, you can run it using sudo as follows :

$ sudo lshw

ubuntu                    
    description: Computer
    width: 32 bits
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       physical id: 0
     *-memory
          description: System memory
          physical id: 0
          size: 875MiB
     *-cpu
          physical id: 1
          bus info: cpu@0
  *-network:0
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: usb0
       serial: 00:11:22:33:44:55
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=g_ether driverversion=29-May-2008 firmware=sw_usb_udc link=no multicast=yes
  *-network:1
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 2
       bus info: usb@1:1
       logical name: wlan5
       serial: cc:d2:9b:2f:e9:e0
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8188eu ip=192.168.7.101 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
  *-network:2
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 3
       logical name: eth0
       serial: 02:c7:08:c2:14:c3
       size: 10Mbit/s
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sunxi_emac driverversion=1.01 duplex=half link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s

The output of lshw contain copious amounts of information about every aspects of your pc hardware. If you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of details, you can use the option -short to get an abridged version of the output.

$ sudo lshw -short

H/W path  Device  Class      Description
========================================
                  system     Computer
/0                bus        Motherboard
/0/0              memory     875MiB System memory
/0/1              processor  
/1        usb0    network    Ethernet interface
/2        wlan5   network    Wireless interface
/3        eth0    network    Ethernet interface

As you can see in the preceeding output, lshw classifies different parts of the hardware using classes. So if you want to see only the information related to a particular class such as memory, you can run the lshw command using the -class option as follows :

$ sudo lshw -class memory

  *-memory                
       description: System memory
       physical id: 0
       size: 875MiB

… which will provide you detailed specifications  about your computer’s memory and little else.

To get a list of all the classes identified by lshw, you can execute  it using the -businfo option.

Get lshw output in multiple formats

lshw command provides output in multiple file formats. For example, you can get the output in HTML, XML, text and a few more.
For instance, to get the output in HTML, you use the -html option as follows :

$ sudo lshw -html > hardware-info.html

… And it presents the output in a nice HTML format.

lshw GUI

The lshw command also has an equivalent GUI  which is available as the lshw-gtk package in Debian based Linux distributions. In Ubuntu, you can install lshw GUI as follows :

$ sudo apt-get install lshw-gtk

This GUI tool provides all the details in a very user friendly and structured manner which any lay person can understand.

To sum up, identifying all the PC hardware in Linux such as  processors, memory, chipset,  audio and video is made easy using the lshw command.