Sometimes it becomes necessary to determine which motherboard is used on your computer. In the Windows operating system, this will not cause any problems, since there are many programs to solve this problem. For example, the same CPU-Z.
In Linux, such utilities are also enough, and some of them are already supplied with the operating system, others need to be installed. Next, we’ll show you how to find the Linux motherboard’s model in various ways.
The content of the article
File system /sys
Information about all computer hardware and the operating system is stored in the /sys file system. There you can see the manufacturer, model, and version of the motherboard. To do this, do:
$ cat /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id/board_{vendor,name,version}
Intel Corporation
440BX Desktop Reference Platform
None
dmidecode utility
To view information about the equipment it is more convenient to use special utilities. One of them is dmidecode. It allows you to view the information recorded in the DMI. To display information about the motherboard, use the -t option with a value of 2:
$ sudo dmidecode -t 2
# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.
Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 15 bytes
Base Board Information
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Product Name: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
Version: None
Serial Number: None
Asset Tag: Not Specified
Features: None
Location In Chassis: Not Specified
Chassis Handle: 0x0000
Type: Unknown
Contained Object Handles: 0
hardinfo utility
The hardinfo program allows you to view information about computer hardware in a graphical interface. Here you can easily recognize the motherboard model. But before using the program you need to install:
sudo apt install hardinfo
CPU-G utility
The CPU-G program is an analog of popular utility CPU-Z in Linux. It is written in Python, looks like CPU-Z. It allows you to see most of the characteristics of the processor in the graphical interface, to find out the model of the board that is used. To install the utility, you must use PPA:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
In the program, you need to open the Motherboard tab. It displays the BIOS version, BIOS release date, and board information.
Command lshw
The lshw command displays information about the motherboard at the very beginning of its output. Here, in addition to the manufacturer and model of the board, the current BIOS version is displayed, which can be very convenient if you are preparing to update the BIOS.
$ sudo lshw
*-core
description: Motherboard
product: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
version: None
serial: None
dmesg log
The BIOS version and motherboard model can be found in the dmesg kernel log. To do this, filter the DMI line:
$ dmesg | grep DMI: [ 0.000000] DMI: VMware, Inc. VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform, BIOS 6.00 04/13/2018
Video
Test Environment
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Conclusion
In this article, we looked at several ways to find out the Linux motherboard model. This is not difficult, and there are enough programs to help us. What programs do you use? Write in the comments!
