Inxi is a great tool you can use to find out the system and hardware information on a Linux system.
If you're using Debian/Ubuntu-based distribution, you can install it with:
apt install inxi
On rpm-based distros, you can use:
dnf install inxi
On Arch Linux, you can install inxi package from AUR.
You can use inxi --recommends to check if you need to install additional dependencies.
Basic use
If you run just the inxi command, you'll get a quick summary like this:
CPU: Single Core Intel Xeon (Skylake IBRS) (-MCP-) speed: 2100 MHz
Kernel: 4.19.0-12-amd64 x86_64 Up: 649d 1h 15m Mem: 350.9/1947.2 MiB (18.0%)
Storage: 19.07 GiB (11.9% used) Procs: 87 Shell: bash 5.0.3 inxi: 3.0.32
To get a full summary, you can use -F or --full flag, i.e. inxi -F:
System: Host: s Kernel: 4.19.0-12-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Console: tty 0 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Machine: Type: Kvm System: BetterWays product: vServer v: 20171111 serial: 8711068
Mobo: N/A model: N/A serial: N/A BIOS: BetterWays v: 20171111 date: 11/11/2017
CPU: Topology: Single Core model: Intel Xeon (Skylake IBRS) bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 16.0 MiB
Speed: 2100 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2100
Graphics: Device-1: driver: bochs-drm v: N/A
Display: server: No display server data found. Headless machine? tty: 237x63
Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio: Message: No Device data found.
Network: Device-1: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus
Device-2: Red Hat Virtio network driver: virtio-pci
IF: eth0 state: up speed: -1 duplex: unknown mac: 96:00:00:80:bb:5e
Drives: Local Storage: total: 19.07 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (11.9%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: QEMU model: HARDDISK size: 19.07 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 18.60 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (12.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors: Missing: Required tool sensors not installed. Check --recommends
Info: Processes: 88 Uptime: 649d 1h 19m Memory: 1.90 GiB used: 351.8 MiB (18.1%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Shell: bash
inxi: 3.0.32
If for some reason you get weird output, you can turn off colors with -c 0.
Output
The default behavior is to just output the information to the screen (--output screen is implied).
But we also can output the information to json/xml files, which can be very useful for scripting/programming purposes.
You can use inxi -F --output json --output-file /tmp/inxi.json to get a json file:
{
"001#Partition": [
{
"001#ID": "/",
"007#uuid": "4236cc65-d07b-4264-8ae6-ff71b870d7cc",
"006#label": "N/A",
"003#used": "2.27 GiB (12.2%)",
"005#dev": "/dev/sda1",
"002#size": "18.60 GiB",
"004#fs": "ext4"
}
],
"000#CPU": [
{
"000#Topology": "Single Core",
"002#bits": 64,
"001#model": "Intel Xeon (Skylake IBRS)",
"004#L2 cache": "16.0 MiB",
"003#type": "MCP"
},
{
"008#1": "2100",
"005#Speed": "2100 MHz",
"006#min/max": "N/A",
"007#Core speed (MHz)": ""
},
{
"009#Flags": "3dnowprefetch abm adx aes apic arat avx avx2 avx512bw avx512cd avx512dq avx512f avx512vl bmi1 bmi2 clflush clwb cmov constant_tsc cpuid cpuid_fault cx16 cx8 de erms f16c fma fpu fsgsbase fxsr hle hypervisor ibpb ibrs invpcid invpcid_single lahf_lm lm mca mce md_clear mmx movbe msr mtrr nopl nx ospke pae pat pcid pclmulqdq pdpe1gb pge pku pni popcnt pse pse36 pti rdrand rdseed rdtscp rep_good rtm sep smap smep ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 syscall tsc tsc_deadline_timer tsc_known_freq vme x2apic xgetbv1 xsave xsavec xsaveopt xtopology"
}
]
}
If you get an error message like Error 80: The required json Perl module is not installed: Cpanel::JSON::XS OR JSON::XS, you need to install libjson-xs-perl package.
xml:
inxi -F --output xml --output-file /tmp/inxi.xml
In case you see something like Error 80: The required xml Perl module is not installed: XML::Dumper, you need to install libxml-dumper-perl package.
If you need to just export textual info, you use normal output redirection (you can disable colors with -c 0, but inxi will usually do that automatically if the connected output is not interactive terminal):
inxi -c 0 -F > /tmp/inxi.txt
Specific categories
If you're interested only in specific categories, you can limit the output with the following flags (the same works for json/xml output):
Audio info - inxi -A:
Audio: Message: No Device data found.
CPU info - inxi -C:
CPU: Topology: Single Core model: Intel Xeon (Skylake IBRS) bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 16.0 MiB
Speed: 2100 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2100
Drives info - inxi -D:
Drives: Local Storage: total: 19.07 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (11.9%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: QEMU model: HARDDISK size: 19.07 GiB
Graphics info - inxi -G:
Graphics: Device-1: driver: bochs-drm v: N/A
Display: server: No display server data found. Headless machine? tty: 237x63
Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Machine info - inxi -M:
Machine: Type: Kvm System: BetterWays product: vServer v: 20171111 serial: 8711068
Mobo: N/A model: N/A serial: N/A BIOS: BetterWays v: 20171111 date: 11/11/2017
Network info - inxi -N:
Network: Device-1: Intel 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI type: network bridge driver: piix4_smbus
Device-2: Red Hat Virtio network driver: virtio-pci
And, of course, you can combine multiple categories - inxi -C -D:
CPU: Topology: Single Core model: Intel Xeon (Skylake IBRS) bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 16.0 MiB
Speed: 2100 MHz min/max: N/A Core speed (MHz): 1: 2100
Drives: Local Storage: total: 19.07 GiB used: 2.27 GiB (11.9%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: QEMU model: HARDDISK size: 19.07 GiB
Weather
If that's not enough, inxi can also show you the weather info with inxi -w:
Weather:
Report: temperature: 29.4 C (85 F) conditions: Scattered clouds
Locale: current time: Sun 04 Sep 2022 02:40:34 PM CEST (Europe/Berlin)
Source: WeatherBit.io
(you can specify the location with -W switch)
Alternatives
A lot of this information can be found in /proc, which doesn't require any additional tool.
Another popular script you may want to check is called neofetch.
Note: This is a snapshot of the wiki page from the BetterWays.dev wiki, you can find the latest (better formatted) version here: betterways.dev/inxi-finding-out-hardware-configuration-on-linux.
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