How to detect hardware with lspci

If you want to know what components are installed inside a computer, and you don't feel like hauling the thing out, popping the case open, and tearing it apart, use lspci:

# /sbin/lscpi

# /sbin/lspci -v

# /sbin/lspci -vv

To show a summary of all devices connected to the PCI bus, use:

$ /sbin/lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133] (rev 02)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8363/8365 [KT133/KM133 AGP]

00:06.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 model NC100 

(rev 11)

...

Use the -v or -vv flags to display more information:

# /sbin/lspci -v

0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01) (prog-if 

00 [VGA])

Subsystem: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc.: Unknown device 1252

Flags: 66MHz, fast devsel, IRQ 10

Memory at d4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]

Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]

I/O ports at c000 [size=256]

Expansion ROM at  [disabled] [size=64K]

Capabilities: [54] AGP version 1.0

Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1

If you're looking for drivers, you can now take this output (e.g., VT8363/8365 or 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01)) to run a Google search.

lspci reads some information from the PCI bus, then displays additional information from its own database of hardware IDs—vendors, devices, classes and subclasses—at /usr/share/misc/pci.ids. There is even a command to update this file:

# update-pciids

The lspci maintainers welcome submissions of new data; please read /usr/share/misc/pci.ids for how to make submissions.

If there is a device attached to the system that the lspci simply does not recognize, such as a very old, odd ISA device, you'll have to open the case to see what it is.