Configure Hardware Settings

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings
Prepare your system for Linux
Ian Shields February 09, 2017

(First published October 28, 2015)
Learn how to set up your computer hardware for Linux and how to find information about your
hardware via Linux commands and tools. You can use the material in this tutorial to study for
the LPI 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or to learn for fun.
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Overview
In this tutorial, learn to configure and check the hardware for your Linux system. Learn to:
Enable and disable integrated peripherals

Configure systems with or without external peripherals such as keyboards
Distinguish different types of mass storage devices
Understand cold-plug and hot-plug devices
Know what hardware resources devices use
Use tools to list and manipulate devices
Understand sysfs, procfs, udev, and dbus
Computer hardware
Today's computers have come a long way from the IBM PCs introduced in 1981. Apart from
massive increases in speed, memory, and storage capabilities, perhaps the most notable changes
have been in configuration and setup. In this tutorial, I cover some common hardware settings that
you might make on current computers, and I explore the commands that Linux has for listing and
managing hardware.
Copyright IBM Corporation 2015, 2017 Trademarks

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 1 of 26
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About this series

This series of tutorials helps you learn Linux system administration tasks. You can also use
the material in these tutorials to prepare for the Linux Professional Institute's LPIC-1: Linux
Server Professional Certification exams.
See "Learn Linux, 101: A roadmap for LPIC-1" for a description of and link to each tutorial in
this series. The roadmap is in progress and reflects the version 4.0 objectives of the LPIC-1
exams as updated April 15th, 2015. As tutorials are completed, they will be added to the
roadmap.
This tutorial helps you prepare for Objective 101.1 in Topic 101 of the Linux Server Professional
(LPIC-1) exam 101. The objective has a weight of 2.
Prerequisites
To get the most from the tutorials in this series, you need a basic knowledge of Linux and a
working Linux system on which you can practice the commands that are covered in this tutorial.
Sometimes different versions of a program format output differently, so your results might not
always look exactly like the listings and figures that are shown here. The examples in this tutorial
come from 64-bit systems with traditional Basic Input-Output Services (BIOS) or with the newer
Universal Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
Hardware settings
You usually configure settings by using either BIOS or UEFI firmware. Unless a setting is specific
to UEFI, I use the term BIOS settings to cover both BIOS and UEFI settings.
Hardware history: Jumpers and DIP switches

In the early days of the PC, BIOS was a mysterious black box with no user interaction. The
few hardware settings that you could modify or set were changed by installing or removing
a device that is known as a jumper. Where several settings were needed, a Dual Inline
Package (DIP) switch was often used. An external modem might still contain DIP switches
for managing some internal settings, but you will seldom use either jumpers or DIP switches
to configure computers today. BIOS now has a user interface, and settings are stored in
nonvolatile memory.
You can access BIOS settings when you turn on your computer. Usually you do this by pressing
a key such as Del, F1, or F8 after turning on the computer but before the operating system load
starts. As machines have become faster and solid-state drives (SSDs) have reduced boot time
to a few seconds, you might find that your system has a special button or key sequence to use.
Check your system documentation to find out how to access the BIOS settings. The examples that
are shown here illustrate the kinds of settings you might find, but the actual layout of your BIOS
interface will probably be different from mine.
Figure 1 shows an example of a BIOS main screen for a system that I built. On this screen, you
can change the system date and time. You can also change parameters for the legacy floppy drive
if you have one. You also see the summary of installed drives. My system has only SATA drives,
although IDE drives are also supported through the on-board controllers.

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Figure 1. BIOS main screen with date and time settings
If your system supports legacy peripheral interfaces, you might have a place to configure them. In
my case, I can use the Advanced menu to configure the serial and parallel port interrupt requests
(IRQs) and I/O port starting addresses. Figure 2 shows the advanced settings for my system.
In addition to configuring the legacy serial and parallel ports, note that I can enable or disable
the on-board LAN and 1394 (FireWire) controllers. Note that the LAN controller also has a boot
ROM that I have disabled. You enable the boot ROM if you want the system to load over a LAN
from a remote server. You might want this for a kiosk machine or for reimaging a large number of
systems.
Figure 2. Configuring serial, parallel, and on-board devices with BIOS
Your BIOS can also have settings that you can use to boot without a keyboard or mouse. When
there is a boot error or maybe a change in configuration (such as the addition of memory), many

systems particularly older ones require you to press a key to enter BIOS setup. What
happens if the system has no keyboard? Today, you might plug in a Universal Serial Bus (USB)
keyboard, but older systems with PS2 keyboard connectors could sometimes be damaged when a
keyboard was plugged in. So, on many BIOS systems, you can disable either the keyboard itself or
the warning that you might get if the keyboard is not present. I have a keyboard on my system, so
my Wait for 'F1' If Error setting is enabled, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Disabling keyboard or keyboard boot error with BIOS
Another important setting that you might need to make is the order of boot devices. As shown in
Figure 4, my system is set to check the first floppy drive, then the first SATA drive, and finally a
CD or DVD. I haven't had a working floppy drive for several years, so I could probably safely drop
it from the sequence. If my hard drive isn't working, I have the CD or DVD as a backup. See the
tutorial "Learn Linux, 101: Boot the system" for information on how to choose the CD or DVD if you
want to boot from it only once.

Figure 4. Configuring boot device order with BIOS
For UEFI systems, many settings are similar to those for traditional BIOS, including date, time, and
whether on-board devices are enabled or not. Figure 5 shows an example from a Lenovo Yoga 2
Pro.
Figure 5. Configuring date, time, and on-board devices with UEFI
One major difference with UEFI systems is, of course, support for UEFI booting. Your system
might support UEFI-only booting or it might also support legacy BIOS-like booting. My system has
a Boot Mode parameter with two choices, as shown in Figure 6. When I choose Legacy Support,
I can boot a legacy system or a UEFI system. My system will only boot UEFI systems if I choose
UEFI.

Figure 6. Choosing UEFI boot mode
If you select UEFI-only booting, then you will probably not see some items that are related to
legacy support, such as the legacy USB support option that you saw in Figure 5. You will also
probably have options for support of secure boot, which allows only signed binaries to be booted.
Figure 7 shows some of the security options that you might see if you select UEFI-only booting.
On my system, there are both status values and options that you can change. For example, the
Platform Mode setting of User confirms that security keys have been installed. If no keys are
installed, the value is likely to be Setup instead. I can use the Reset to Setup Mode to install new
keys, or I can use the Restore Factory Keys to restore the preinstalled factory keys.
Figure 7. Secure boot options with UEFI

Mass storage devices

Computers use several types of mass storage, and this storage can be attached in various ways.
Today, most mass storage devices use standard interfaces, and either the device is detected when
connected or the BIOS configuration is mostly automatic. Later in this tutorial, you'll see how to
determine which resources a device needs. For now, let's look at the different types of common
mass storage devices.
Hardware history: Diskettes or floppy disks

Early PCs stored the operating system and data on diskettes, also known as floppy disks.
Although the computer used in Figure 1 does not have a floppy drive installed, you see
vestiges of the configuration for one in the initial BIOS screen. Today, you might find a 3.5-
inch floppy drive available with a USB attachment, but you will probably not find a computer
with one installed internally.
Hard drives
The hard drive has been the workhorse of data storage on PCs since the early 1980s. Hard drives
come in a sealed unit and contain several recording surfaces or platters. The ST-506 introduced
in 1980 had a 5MB capacity and used a controller card to translate requests from the computer to
the internal commands needed to access the data on the disk platters. In 1984, IBM introduced
the IBM PC/AT computer with a 16-bit AT bus, later known as an Industry Standard Architecture
(ISA) bus. The AT attachment interface (ATA) standardized the interface between the controller
card and the computer, preserving compatibility with the ST-506 command set. In the early 1980s,
Western Digital moved the controller function inside the drive housing under the name Integrated
Drive Electronics (IDE). You will find several later standards and terms, including ATA-1, ATA-2,
ATA-4, and EIDE, among others. When Serial ATA (SATA) was introduced in 2003, the original
ATA interface became known as Parallel ATA (PATA).
Another popular disk-attachment interface is the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI). SCSI
was developed around 1978 for attaching various devices, including hard drives and printers. SCSI
disks are still popular in larger servers.
The original ATA interface was designed for hard drives. The ATA interface was extended to the
ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) for use with other devices, such as floppy drives, Zip drives, or CD
drives. ATAPI added capability to detect media presence, or eject media, among other features not
needed for a normal hard drive. The ATAPI interface can carry SCSI commands in packets and
thus support various device types.
Today, internal hard drives usually use either SCSI or SATA attachment. Drives can also be
attached externally using USB, IEE-1394 (FireWire), External Serial Advanced Technology
Attachment (eSATA), or Apple's Thunderbolt.
Hard drives can be partitioned to divide their space for different uses, and they can be combined
into arrays for redundancy. Hard drives can also be grouped together using tools such as Logical
Volume Manager to make several smaller disks appear as one or more larger ones.

CD and DVD drives

CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray drives use optical storage to hold much more data than a floppy drive.
Early CD drives were often attached through a sound card, and the interfaces were many and
varied. Later CD and then DVD drives standardized on the ATAPI interface. Today, you will find CD
drives internally connected using SATA, or externally connected using the same kinds of interfaces
used for hard drives. Software packages are often distributed on CD or DVD, which were initially
read-only media. Now, using devices and media, users can create (burn) their own CDs and DVDs
for backup or data storage.
Flash or thumb drives

Perhaps the most common means of exchanging data today is the flash or thumb drive. These
drives use nonvolatile RAM to store data. They are much more reliable, faster, and higher-capacity
than floppy disks and can be reused many times, unlike CD or DVD media. Most are about the
size of a human thumb hence the name and usually attach to a USB port. Most support USB
2.0, which has a maximum speed of 480Mbps. Newer devices support USB 3.0 with a speed of up
to 5Gbps. At the time of writing, typical sizes range from 1GB to 256GB, with a few larger 512GB
and 1TB models available. You can partition thumb drives like hard drivesa. If you download a new
Linux distribution, you might burn it to a USB thumb drive so you can install it from that device.
Solid-state drives
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are a newer form of drive that is being used in many notebook
computers. Compared to the traditional hard drive, SSDs are lighter and faster, use less power,
and do not suffer from mechanical failure. SSDs are often housed like notebook drives and use
the same interfaces, although this arrangement can limit the theoretical capabilities of an SSD.
A newer attachment called NVM Express (NVMe) has been developed for PCI Express (PCIe)
based solid-state drives. The specification is designed to better use SSDs over PCIe.
Hot plug and cold plug

Hot plugging of devices became popular with notebook hardware that supported removable cards
using the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) specification and
later the CardBus specification, as well as exchange of a floppy drive for a CD. Linux introduced
hot-plugging support starting with kernel 2.4 in 2001. The term cold plugging is used by analogy to
refer to devices that are physically attached to the computer at boot time.
With the advent of USB and IEEE-1394 FireWire devices, hot plugging became the norm rather
than the exception. Today, high-end servers can dynamically move resources such as memory or
CPUs between Linux systems that are multiplexed on a single system. The result is that almost
anything can be hot plugged. Consequently, the Linux system now uses only a few cold-plug
devices to start the system, and then activates everything else using hot-plug events that drive
udev rules. Even the cold-plugged devices are rescanned to drive udev events and effectively
become hot plugged.

Virtual files for hardware and system information

Several virtual filesystems provide an in-memory look at your system as the kernel sees it. These
filesystems are virtual in the sense that no real files exist on storage devices. Rather, the virtual
filesystems provide insight into kernel data structures and into your system hardware.
Sysfs and /sys

Sysfs is a virtual filesystem that the Linux kernel uses to export information about kernel objects
to processes running in user space. It was introduced in the 2.6 kernel and was originally derived
from ramfs, which dated from the 2.4 kernel. As a virtual filesystem, sysfs is an in-memory
filesystem that is mounted at /sys. If it is not mounted during initialization by an entry in /etc/fstab,
you can always mount it using the command:
mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys
Sysfs is a simple filesystem with files that represent object attributes. The objects themselves are
represented by directories. Symbolic links represent relationships between objects. The top-level
directories in sysfs represent major subsystems. Listing 1 shows examples of the top-level /sys
directory and the /sys/bus and /sys/devices directories.
Listing 1. Some entries from the sysfs filesystem

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys
block class devices fs kernel power
bus dev firmware hypervisor module
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys/bus
acpi edac i2c mipi-dsi platform usb
clockevents event_source machinecheck node pnp usb-serial
clocksource firewire mdio_bus pci scsi workqueue
container hdaudio media pci_express serio xen
cpu hid memory pcmcia snd_seq xen-backend
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys/devices/
breakpoint ibs_fetch LNXSYSTM:00 platform software tracepoint
cpu ibs_op pci0000:00 pnp0 system virtual
If you look at /sys/block, you find your block devices. In my case, I have three hard drives sda,
sdb, and sdc and one CD/DVD drive: sr0. These are actually links to directories under the /
sys/devices directory. If you follow these links, you find the partitions of sda. Looking at the size
file, you see that the disk has 2,040,192 sectors, a value confirmed by fdisk -l, as illustrated in
Listing 2.
Listing 2. Block devices in /sys

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys/block
sda sdb sdc sr0
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls -l /sys/block
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 0 Sep 9 12:11 sda ->
../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 0 Sep 9 12:11 sdb ->
../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata2/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sdb
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 0 Sep 9 12:11 sdc ->
../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata3/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/block/sdc
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 0 Sep 10 20:30 sr0 ->

../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.1/ata6/host5/target5:0:0/5:0:0:0/block/sr0
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys/"devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda"
alignment_offset events power sda10 sda5 slaves
bdi events_async queue sda11 sda6 stat
capability events_poll_msecs range sda12 sda7 subsystem
dev ext_range removable sda2 sda8 trace
device holders ro sda3 sda9 uevent
discard_alignment inflight sda1 sda4 size
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /sys/"devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda"/sda1
alignment_offset discard_alignment inflight power size stat trace
dev holders partition ro start subsystem uevent
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ cat \
> /sys/"devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:11.0/ata1/host0/target0:0:0/0:0:0:0/block/sda"/sda1/size
2040192
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@atticf22 ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda1
Disk /dev/sda1: 996.2 MiB, 1044578304 bytes, 2040192 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
The tree command is a useful tool for exploring /sys. Note also that you have to escape special
characters such as the colon (:) by enclosing them in quotation marks or using the backslash (\)
character.
procfs and /proc

The procfs filesystem provides insight into many of the kernel data structures and even allows a
few to be changed on the fly. procfs is usually mounted at /proc. Listing 3 shows a listing of /proc
on my system.
Listing 3. Listing of /proc

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /proc
1 1274 1891 2155 254 460 559 7651 devices mtrr
10 1278 19 2160 255 468 56 768 diskstats net
107 1281 1903 2174 256 47 562 7745 dma pagetypeinfo
1080 1287 1947 2185 257 48 565 7885 driver partitions
1083 13 1951 22 26 488 57 799 execdomains sched_debug
11 1326 1952 2243 2604 490 570 8 fb scsi
1120 14 1957 2261 2650 495 585 8077 filesystems self
1121 15 1959 2264 266 496 588 8159 fs slabinfo
1144 1548 1971 2289 27 5 590 8182 interrupts softirqs
1181 1557 1990 23 2711 50 599 8189 iomem stat
1187 1561 1996 2310 28 51 603 859 ioports swaps
1192 1591 1999 2327 285 512 6243 9 irq sys
1195 1659 2 2338 286 513 64 940 kallsyms sysrq-trigger
1199 1662 20 2341 29 517 66 942 kcore sysvipc
12 17 2040 2342 3 518 669 947 keys thread-self
1206 1728 2046 24 30 52 67 949 key-users timer_list
1226 1734 2052 2438 31 53 68 973 kmsg timer_stats
1230 1789 2057 2440 32 539 6896 acpi kpagecount tty
1232 1792 21 2442 33 54 69 asound kpageflags uptime
1243 1796 2111 2444 36 548 7 buddyinfo loadavg version
1246 18 2117 2448 37 549 749 bus locks vmallocinfo
1249 1804 2119 25 375 55 7505 cgroups mdstat vmstat
1254 1808 2122 250 392 551 751 cmdline meminfo zoneinfo
1256 1828 2126 251 407 5525 753 consoles misc
1265 1836 2133 252 411 553 759 cpuinfo modules
1269 1853 2153 253 459 557 762 crypto mounts

You see a large number of numbered directories one for each running process on your system.
The number is the process ID (PID). Listing 4 shows the first few entries for a running bash
command prompt (PID=$$ the current PID). Note that almost all entries in the procfs filesystem
have a length of 0, even though they might not be empty and you can see data if you use the cat
command. Most entries are not terminated with a newline character, so I use the echo command in
Listing 4 for clarity.
Listing 4. Showing /proc entries for the current process

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls -l /proc/$$/ | head -n 15
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x. 2 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 attr
-rw-r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 autogroup
-r--------. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 auxv
-r--r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 cgroup
--w-------. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 clear_refs
-r--r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 20:35 cmdline
-rw-r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 comm
-rw-r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 coredump_filter
-r--r--r--. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 cpuset
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 cwd -> /home/ian
-r--------. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 environ
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 ian ian 0 Sep 10 20:35 exe -> /usr/bin/bash
dr-x------. 2 ian ian 0 Sep 10 20:08 fd
dr-x------. 2 ian ian 0 Sep 10 22:44 fdinfo
bash[ian@atticf22 ~]$ # Now display our command line
bash[ian@atticf22 ~]$ cat /proc/$$/cmdline;echo ""
bash
The parameters that you can control by setting values in the procfs filesystem can also
be controlled via the sysctl command. Refer to the sysctl and procfs man pages for more
information.
The procfs filesystem also provides information about interrupt, Direct Memory Access (DMA), and
I/O port resources used by your system.
Listing 5 shows the contents of /proc/interrupts on my system. Older single-processor computers

using the ISA bus use certain well-known interrupts (or IRQs), I/O ports, and DMA resources.
These were in limited supply, so adding a sound card that needed IRQ 5 might prevent use of
a second parallel port that also needed IRQ 5. The PCI bus includes a capability for Message
Signalling Interrupts (MSI), which has significantly eased the resource limitations found in older
systems. ISA bus device interrupts are numbered from 0 through 15. This system does have a
parallel printer port using IRQ7 but does not have serial ports, which normally use IRQ3 or IRQ
4. If you have error messages or a device that does not work and you suspect interrupt conflicts,
looking at /proc/interrupts is a good place to start.
Listing 5. Listing of /proc/interrupts

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0 CPU1
0: 133 0 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 0 2 IO-APIC-edge i8042
7: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge parport0
8: 0 1 IO-APIC-edge rtc0
9: 0 0 IO-APIC-fasteoi acpi
12: 1 4 IO-APIC-edge i8042

14: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp

15: 157 166172 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp
16: 752 764097 IO-APIC 16-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb3, ohci_hcd:usb4, snd_hda_intel
17: 125 74351 IO-APIC 17-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1, firewire_ohci
18: 0 3 IO-APIC 18-fasteoi ohci_hcd:usb5, ohci_hcd:usb6, ohci_hcd:usb7
19: 4 1264 IO-APIC 19-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb2, snd_hda_intel
22: 286 186458 IO-APIC 22-fasteoi 0000:00:11.0
27: 1073 1250614 PCI-MSI-edge enp3s0
28: 7457 10965287 PCI-MSI-edge nvkm
NMI: 850 888 Non-maskable interrupts

LOC: 25779766 25467714 Local timer interrupts
SPU: 0 0 Spurious interrupts
PMI: 850 888 Performance monitoring interrupts
IWI: 0 2 IRQ work interrupts
RTR: 0 0 APIC ICR read retries
RES: 40628246 39894661 Rescheduling interrupts
CAL: 823 986 Function call interrupts
TLB: 1972576 2052293 TLB shootdowns
TRM: 0 0 Thermal event interrupts
THR: 0 0 Threshold APIC interrupts
MCE: 0 0 Machine check exceptions
MCP: 568 568 Machine check polls
HYP: 0 0 Hypervisor callback interrupts
ERR: 0
MIS: 0
DMA was a technique used in ISA bus systems whereby fast devices such as hard drives could
transfer data to computer memory without involving the processor. DMA frees up the processor to
do other work while the data is being read from or written to the device. The PCI bus architecture
uses bus mastering to achieve a similar goal. Listing 6 shows the contents of /proc/dma on my
system. If you have ISA bus resources, you usually see more than this, and you might need this
information to help diagnose conflicts.
Listing 6. Listing of /proc/interrupts

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ cat /proc/dma
4: cascade
Another resource list you can use to help resolve problems is the listing of I/O ports in /proc/
ioports. Several I/O ports used in ISA bus systems are well known, such as the range 0378 to
037a usually used for the first parallel port. Note that the ports are specified in hexadecimal.
Listing 7. Listing of /proc/ioports

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ cat /proc/ioports
0000-0cf7 : PCI Bus 0000:00
0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-0060 : keyboard
0061-0061 : PNP0800:00
0064-0064 : keyboard
0070-0071 : rtc0
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : PNP0C04:00
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : 0000:00:14.1

0170-0177 : pata_atiixp
01f0-01f7 : 0000:00:14.1
01f0-01f7 : pata_atiixp
0230-023f : pnp 00:07
0290-029f : pnp 00:07
0300-030f : pnp 00:07
0376-0376 : 0000:00:14.1
0376-0376 : pata_atiixp
0378-037a : parport0
03c0-03df : vga+
03f6-03f6 : 0000:00:14.1
03f6-03f6 : pata_atiixp
03f8-03ff : serial
040b-040b : pnp 00:06
04d0-04d1 : pnp 00:06
04d6-04d6 : pnp 00:06
0800-0803 : ACPI PM1a_EVT_BLK
0804-0805 : ACPI PM1a_CNT_BLK
0808-080b : ACPI PM_TMR
0810-0815 : ACPI CPU throttle
0820-0827 : ACPI GPE0_BLK
08ff-08ff : ACPI PM2_CNT_BLK
0900-090f : pnp 00:06
0910-091f : pnp 00:06
0a30-0a3f : pnp 00:07
0b00-0b3f : pnp 00:06
0b20-0b2f : pnp 00:06
0c00-0c01 : pnp 00:06
0c14-0c14 : pnp 00:06
0c50-0c51 : pnp 00:06
0c52-0c52 : pnp 00:06
0c6c-0c6c : pnp 00:06
0c6f-0c6f : pnp 00:06

0cd0-0cd1 : pnp 00:06
0cd2-0cd3 : pnp 00:06
0cd4-0cd5 : pnp 00:06
0cd6-0cd7 : pnp 00:06
0cd8-0cdf : pnp 00:06
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
0d00-ffff : PCI Bus 0000:00
8000-800f : 0000:00:11.0
8000-800f : ahci
9000-9003 : 0000:00:11.0
9000-9003 : ahci
a000-a007 : 0000:00:11.0
a000-a007 : ahci
b000-b003 : 0000:00:11.0
b000-b003 : ahci
c000-c007 : 0000:00:11.0
c000-c007 : ahci
d000-dfff : PCI Bus 0000:01
dc00-dc7f : 0000:01:00.0
e000-efff : PCI Bus 0000:03
e800-e8ff : 0000:03:00.0
e800-e8ff : r8169
fe00-fefe : pnp 00:06
ff00-ff0f : 0000:00:14.1
ff00-ff0f : pata_atiixp
The lsdev command

The procinfo package contains the lsdev command, which simplifies the presentation of the
information from /proc by gathering the DMA, IRQ, and I/O port information for each device into a
simple tabular format. Listing 8 shows the lsdev output for my system.

Listing 8. Output from lsdev

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lsdev
Device DMA IRQ I/O Ports
------------------------------------------------
0000:00:11.0 22 8000-800f 9000-9003 a000-a007 b000-b003 c000-c007
0000:00:14.1 0170-0177 01f0-01f7 0376-0376 03f6-03f6 ff00-ff0f
0000:01:00.0 dc00-dc7f
0000:03:00.0 e800-e8ff
acpi 9
ACPI 0800-0803 0804-0805 0808-080b 0810-0815 0820-0827 08ff-08ff
ahci 8000-800f 9000-9003 a000-a007 b000-b003 c000-c007
cascade 4
dma 0080-008f
dma1 0000-001f
dma2 00c0-00df
enp3s0 27
firewire_ohci 17
fpu 00f0-00ff
i8042 1 12
keyboard 0060-0060 0064-0064
nvkm 28
ohci_hcd:usb7 18
parport0 7 0378-037a
pata_atiixp 14 15 0170-0177 01f0-01f7 0376-0376 03f6-03f6 ff00-ff0f
PCI 0000-0cf7 0cf8-0cff 0d00-ffff d000-dfff e000-efff
pic1 0020-0021
pic2 00a0-00a1
pnp 0230-023f 0290-029f 0300-030f 040b-040b 04d0-04d1 04d6-04d6 0900-090f
0910-091f 0a30-0a3f 0b00-0b3f 0b20-0b2f 0c00-0c01 0c14-0c14 0c50-0c51
0c52-0c52 0c6c-0c6c 0c6f-0c6f 0cd0-0cd1 0cd2-0cd3 0cd4-0cd5 0cd6-0cd7
0cd8-0cdf fe00-fefe
PNP0800:00 0061-0061
PNP0C04:00 00f0-00ff
r8169 e800-e8ff
rtc0 8 0070-0071
serial 03f8-03ff
snd_hda_intel 16 19
timer 0
timer0 0040-0043
timer1 0050-0053
vga+ 03c0-03df
The procinfo package also contains the procinfo command, which summarizes other information
from /proc. Try it or see the man page for details.
udev and /dev

udev is responsible for the dynamic device management needed for hot plugging devices.
Information about configured and active devices is contained in the /dev virtual filesystem. When
a device is added to or removed from the system, or it changes state, the kernel sends an event
to the systemd-udevd.service daemon, which manages udev events. The daemon searches
configured rules to match the event with a rule to identify the device. The kernel usually assigns a
name that is neither meaningful nor repeatable, so udev usually assigns a more meaningful and
consistent name.
The udev rules are in /usr/lib/udev/rules.d, with additional local rules in /etc/udev/rules.d. You can
create additional rules in the volatile /run/udev/rules.d directory. You can configure udev using the /
etc/udev/udev.conf file. NOTE: Some systems place rules in /lib/udev/rules.d rather than /usr/lib/
udev/rules.d. Check the udev man page on your system.

The /dev filesystem describes the devices on your system. In a long listing, you find one of four
values in the first column:
b
Represents a block device such as a disk drive
c
Represents a character device such as a terminal or printer, or a special device such as null
d
Represents a directory
l
Represents a symbolic link to another directory of file, either in /dev, /proc, or /run
Listing 9 shows a partial listing of /dev on my system where you see examples of each type of
entry.
Listing 9. Partial listing of /dev

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls -l /dev| head -n 60
total 0
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 235 Sep 9 12:11 autofs
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 620 Sep 11 06:05 block
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 140 Sep 11 06:05 bsg
crw-rw----. 1 root disk 10, 234 Sep 9 12:11 btrfs-control
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 60 Sep 9 12:11 bus
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 3 Sep 9 12:11 cdrom -> sr0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 3820 Sep 11 09:59 char
crw-------. 1 root root 5, 1 Sep 9 12:12 console
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 11 Sep 9 12:11 core -> /proc/kcore
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 100 Sep 9 12:11 cpu
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 62 Sep 9 12:11 cpu_dma_latency
drwxr-xr-x. 8 root root 160 Sep 11 06:05 disk
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 100 Sep 9 12:11 dri
crw-rw----. 1 root video 29, 0 Sep 9 12:11 fb0
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 13 Sep 9 12:11 fd -> /proc/self/fd
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root root 1, 7 Sep 9 12:11 full
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root root 10, 229 Sep 9 14:46 fuse
crw-------. 1 root root 249, 0 Sep 9 12:11 fw0
crw-------. 1 root root 250, 0 Sep 9 12:11 hidraw0
crw-------. 1 root root 250, 1 Sep 11 09:59 hidraw1
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 228 Sep 9 12:11 hpet
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 0 Sep 9 12:11 hugepages
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 183 Sep 9 12:11 hwrng
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 25 Sep 9 12:11 initctl -> /run/systemd/initctl/fifo
drwxr-xr-x. 4 root root 420 Sep 11 09:59 input
crw-r--r--. 1 root root 1, 11 Sep 9 12:11 kmsg
crw-rw-rw-+ 1 root kvm 10, 232 Sep 9 12:11 kvm
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 28 Sep 9 12:11 log -> /run/systemd/journal/dev-log
crw-rw----. 1 root disk 10, 237 Sep 9 12:11 loop-control
crw-rw----. 1 root lp 6, 0 Sep 9 12:11 lp0
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Sep 9 12:11 mapper
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 227 Sep 9 12:11 mcelog
crw-------. 1 root root 247, 0 Sep 9 12:11 media0
crw-r-----. 1 root kmem 1, 1 Sep 9 12:11 mem
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 59 Sep 9 12:11 memory_bandwidth
drwxrwxrwt. 2 root root 40 Sep 9 12:11 mqueue
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Sep 9 12:11 net
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 61 Sep 9 12:11 network_latency
crw-------. 1 root root 10, 60 Sep 9 12:11 network_throughput
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root root 1, 3 Sep 9 12:11 null

crw-------. 1 root root 10, 144 Sep 9 12:11 nvram

crw-rw-r--. 1 root lp 99, 0 Sep 9 12:11 parport0
crw-r-----. 1 root kmem 1, 4 Sep 9 12:11 port
crw-------. 1 root root 108, 0 Sep 9 12:11 ppp
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root tty 5, 2 Sep 11 10:33 ptmx
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 0 Sep 9 12:11 pts
crw-rw-rw-. 1 root root 1, 8 Sep 9 12:11 random
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 60 Sep 9 12:11 raw
crw-rw-r--+ 1 root root 10, 58 Sep 9 14:46 rfkill
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 4 Sep 9 12:11 rtc -> rtc0
crw-------. 1 root root 254, 0 Sep 9 12:11 rtc0
brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 0 Sep 9 12:11 sda
brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 1 Sep 9 12:11 sda1
Listing 10 shows the linkage between some kernel-assigned names and some more-familiar
names for hard-drive partitions.
Listing 10. Symbolic links to familiar hard drive names

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls -l /dev/block/8\:?
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 6 Sep 9 12:11 /dev/block/8:0 -> ../sda
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Sep 9 12:11 /dev/block/8:1 -> ../sda1
[
If you want to manage or monitor udev events, you can use the udevadm command. See the man
pages for more information.
Tools and utilities

Some useful tools are available for determining information about your PCI and USB devices. Let's
look at lspci and lsusb.
PCI and lspci

Use lspci without options to see a basic listing of your PCI devices. What you see depends on
your own system hardware. Listing 11 shows the Fedora 22 desktop system that I have been using
for most of this tutorial.
Listing 11. Using lspci to display desktop PCI devices

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ # Fedora 22
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (ext gfx port 0)
00:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780/RS880 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1)
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller
[IDE mode]

00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:12.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.1 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0 USB OHCI1 Controller
00:13.2 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a)
00:14.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 IDE Controller
00:14.2 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller
00:14.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport
Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 HDMI Audio Controller (rev a1)
02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): JMicron Technology Corp. IEEE 1394 Host Controller
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit
Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
Listing 12 shows a Ubuntu 15.04 system running on a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro notebook.
Listing 12. Using lspci to display notebook PCI devices

ian@ubuntu:~$ # Ubuntu 15.04
ian@ubuntu:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 09)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Device 0a03 (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB xHCI HC (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series HECI #0 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev e4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB EHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series SMBus Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series Thermal (rev 04)
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 6b)
The lspci command looks up much of its data in the /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids file, which contains
a list of all known IDs (vendors, devices, classes, and subclasses). Vendor and device codes are
assigned numbers. Use the -n option if you want to see numbers instead of names. If you have
a new device that is not yet in your local database, use the -q option to query the central PCI
ID server database using a DNS lookup. If a device is found there, the information is saved in
~/.pciids-cache, and the device is recognized on later runs even if you do not specify -q.
PCI topology is described by four levels: domain, bus, slot, and function. You can restrict output by
using any of these components along with the -s option. The -t option shows the output in a tree
view. Other options of lspci control the verbosity and format of the output. You can have more or
less verbose output, and the output can be suitable for machine or human reading.
Listing 13 shows the topology tree for devices in slot 00 on my system, using the -t and -v
options.

Listing 13. Output of lspci -tv

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lspci -tvv -s \:00
-+-[0000:03]---00.0 Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
Controller
+-[0000:02]---00.0 JMicron Technology Corp. IEEE 1394 Host Controller
+-[0000:01]-+-00.0 NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610]
| \-00.1 NVIDIA Corporation GF119 HDMI Audio Controller
\-[0000:00]---00.0 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge
You can also restrict output by vendor ID, device, or class by using the -d option. And the -k
option tells you which kernel driver is handling the device and which kernel modules are capable of
handling it. Listing 14 shows this output for the NVIDIA graphics and sound devices on my system.
The vendor ID for NVIDIA is 10de, which you can find out by using the -nn option of lspci.
Listing 14. Output of lspci with -d and -k options

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lspci -d 10de\:
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lspci -d 10de\: -k
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8496
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nouveau
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8496
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
See the man pages for the many other options for lspci. Some of them give you access to
detailed information on PCI devices. There is also a setpci command, which enables a root user
to query and configure PCI devices. Again, see the man pages for details.
USB and lsusb

Use the lsusb command to display information about your USB devices. As with lspci, the -t
option displays information in a tree layout, as shown in Listing 15.
Listing 15. Tree output of lsusb

[root@atticf22 ~]# lsusb -t
/: Bus 07.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ohci-pci/2p, 12M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 12M
|__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
|__ Port 4: Dev 15, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 1.5M
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/6p, 480M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/6p, 480M
|__ Port 5: Dev 7, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
|__ Port 2: Dev 13, If 0, Class=Mass Storage, Driver=usb-storage, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 2, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M
|__ Port 6: Dev 4, If 3, Class=Audio, Driver=snd-usb-audio, 480M

USB devices connect to a hub. The root hubs are at the top level and can support USB 1, 2, or
3. The OHCI (or UHCI) driver supports USB 1.1 (12Mbps), the EHCI driver supports USB 2.0
(480Mbps), and the XHCI driver supports USB 3.0 (5Gbps). USB Attached SCSI (UAS) is a faster
protocol developed for USB 3.0 that also supports USB 2.0 speeds. UAS was introduced into
Linux at kernel 3.15.
Attached devices fall into several classes:
Human-interface devices include keyboards, mice, and other such devices.

Communications devices include modems and serial, Ethernet, or WiFi interfaces.
Mass storage devices include hard drives, CD and DVD drives, flash drives, memory card
readers, and cameras.
Audio devices include sound cards, MIDI devices, speakers, and microphones.
IrDA devices use infrared communication and include medical devices and test equipment.
Printer devices include printers and other devices such as numerically controlled machines.
Video devices include webcams.
Many attached devices use a class driver, such as usb-storage for a storage device, usbhid for a
human-interface device such as mouse or keyboard, or hub for a cascaded hub. The list in Listing
15 includes two human-interface devices (my mouse and keyboard) and a USB 2.0 hub with an
attached storage device (a thumb drive). Some specialized devices might require a unique driver
for the device.
As with PCI devices, you can limit the output by USB topology or by vendor or device ID. Listing 16
shows an example of each.
Listing 16. Limiting the output of lsusb

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lsusb -d 046d:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:081b Logitech, Inc. Webcam C310
Bus 003 Device 015: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. Cordless Mouse Receiver
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lsusb -s 01:
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:081b Logitech, Inc. Webcam C310
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
There is also a usbview command that you can use to view USB information graphically. The data
is presented in tree view in the left pane. Selecting an entry shows the details in the right pane.
The example in Figure 8 shows details for a USB drive.

Figure 8. Using usbview
Message passing and D-Bus

When new hardware is plugged in, or a printer runs out of paper, a user often needs to be
notified. D-Bus (also known as dbus) is a message-passing bus developed under the auspices
of freedesktop.org. A single system daemon allows communication between the kernel and user
space for events such as new hardware found. D-Bus messages can drive notifications to a user,
and the receiving application can then suggest actions such as opening a file browser when a CD
or DVD is inserted in a drive or when a USB thumb drive is plugged in.
There is also a per-user-session daemon that is launched at login time. The user daemon provides
interprocess communication between the user applications. The D-Bus protocol is a general
one-to-one message-passing framework. Two applications could even communicate using the
framework without messages passing through the dbus daemon.
See Related topics for additional information on D-Bus.
Kernel modules
A long time ago, computer operating systems were configured and built to handle a specific set
of attached hardware. If a device was not built into the operating system kernel, it could not be
added or used. As the variety of devices increased and as the need grew to dynamically add
devices by hot plugging, this model no longer worked. Today the kernel is minimal, and device
support is configured by loadable kernel modules (LKMs). A basic set of device-support modules is
usually included in an initial RAM disk that is loaded as part of the boot process. Once the system
is up, the kernel probes the system further and loads needed device modules as new devices are
discovered.

Several commands are used for interrogating and manipulating kernel modules. I'll cover lsmod,
modinfo, and modprobe here. The modprobe command has now replaced the function of the earlier
insmod and rmmod commands because it is more powerful.
Using lsmod
The lsmod command formats the information from /proc/modules to give you a current status of
the modules in your Linux system. The lsmod command has no options. Listing 17 shows a partial
listing of the module status on my system.
Listing 17. Partial listing of module status with lsmod

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
vfat 24576 1
fat 69632 1 vfat
uas 24576 0
usb_storage 65536 2 uas
xt_CHECKSUM 16384 1
ipt_MASQUERADE 16384 3
nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4 16384 1 ipt_MASQUERADE
nf_conntrack_netbios_ns 16384 0
nf_conntrack_broadcast 16384 1 nf_conntrack_netbios_ns
ip6t_rpfilter 16384 1
ip6t_REJECT 16384 2
nf_reject_ipv6 16384 1 ip6t_REJECT
xt_conntrack 16384 22
ebtable_nat 16384 1
ebtable_broute 16384 1
ebtable_filter 16384 1
ebtables 32768 3 ebtable_broute,ebtable_nat,ebtable_filter
ip6table_nat 16384 1
nf_conntrack_ipv6 20480 12
nf_defrag_ipv6 36864 1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
nf_nat_ipv6 16384 1 ip6table_nat
ip6table_mangle 16384 1
ip6table_security 16384 1
ip6table_raw 16384 1
ip6table_filter 16384 1
ip6_tables 28672 5 ip6table_filter,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_security,ip6table_nat,
ip6table_raw
iptable_nat 16384 1
nf_conntrack_ipv4 16384 12
nf_defrag_ipv4 16384 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
nf_nat_ipv4 16384 1 iptable_nat
nf_nat 28672 3 nf_nat_ipv4,nf_nat_ipv6,nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4
nf_conntrack 106496 9 nf_conntrack_netbios_ns,nf_nat,nf_nat_ipv4,nf_nat_ipv6,xt_conntrack,
nf_nat_masquerade_ipv4,nf_conntrack_broadcast,nf_conntrack_ipv4,
nf_conntrack_ipv6
iptable_mangle 16384 1
iptable_security 16384 1
iptable_raw 16384 1
bnep 24576 2
bluetooth 491520 5 bnep
rfkill 24576 2 bluetooth
fuse 94208 3
tun 28672 1
bridge 114688 1 ebtable_broute
ppdev 20480 0
uvcvideo 90112 0
kvm_amd 65536 0
kvm 495616 1 kvm_amd
videobuf2_vmalloc 16384 1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_core 49152 1 uvcvideo

videobuf2_memops 16384 1 videobuf2_vmalloc

v4l2_common 16384 1 videobuf2_core
videodev 159744 3 uvcvideo,v4l2_common,videobuf2_core
media 24576 2 uvcvideo,videodev
snd_usb_audio 180224 3
k10temp 16384 0
btrfs 974848 0
edac_core 53248 0
...
Using modinfo
Use the modinfo command to get information about a module. You can give a full filename or just
the module name. Listing 18 shows information for the vfat module, which handles the various
forms of FAT-formatted drives.
Listing 18. Information about the vfat module

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ modinfo vfat
filename: /lib/modules/4.1.6-200.fc22.x86_64/kernel/fs/fat/vfat.ko.xz
author: Gordon Chaffee
description: VFAT filesystem support
license: GPL
alias: fs-vfat
depends: fat
intree: Y
vermagic: 4.1.6-200.fc22.x86_64 SMP mod_unload
signer: Fedora kernel signing key
sig_key: 95:D8:8B:1A:62:3B:BF:DF:EF:E2:58:6B:05:ED:0A:C5:C2:88:C1:3A
sig_hashalgo: sha256
The module information includes the full path to the file and information about any other names
(aliases) the module might be known by. Dependencies, if any, are also listed. So, from Listing 18,
you can see that the vfat module is also known as fs-vfat and depends on another module called
fat. Try running modinfo with these module names.
You can use the -F or --field option to limit the output to a specific field. This option is useful for
scripts.
If you don't specify a full filename, modinfo searches for a module in /lib/modules/version/kernel,
where version is your kernel release as given by uname -r. In the example in Listing 18, the file
vfat.ko.xz (the vfat kernel module) is found in /lib/modules/4.1.6-200.fc22.x86_64/kernel/fs/fat.
Listing 19 illustrates how you might start looking for module files on your system.
Listing 19. Locating module files on your system

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ uname -r
4.1.6-200.fc22.x86_64
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)
build modules.dep modules.softdep
kernel modules.dep.bin modules.symbols
modules.alias modules.devname modules.symbols.bin
modules.alias.bin modules.drm source
modules.block modules.modesetting updates
modules.builtin modules.networking vdso
modules.builtin.bin modules.order
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel
arch crypto drivers fs kernel lib mm net security sound

You can also find several plain-text files in your /lib/modules/$(uname -r) directory including
modules.dep, which lists dependencies, and modules.alias, which lists aliases. The modules.builtin
file lists modules that are built in to the kernel. These include drivers needed for core functionality
on most systems. If you try to use modinfo to find out about the ehci-pci driver that you might
have noticed in the lsusb output, you probably won't find it because it is a built-in driver. Listing 20
illustrates this scenario.
Listing 20. Finding built-in drivers

[ian@atticf22 ~]$ modinfo ehci-pci
modinfo: ERROR: Module ehci-pci not found.
[ian@atticf22 ~]$ grep ehci /lib/modules/4.1.6-200.fc22.x86_64/modules.builtin
kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-pci.ko
Using modprobe
As you've seen from the output of lspci, lsusb, lsmod, and modinfo, your system uses several
kernel modules to drive devices. You have also seen that some of these modules have
dependencies. So, loading the right modules in the right order is important. Fortunately, the
modprobe command has taken over the earlier manual work of insmod and rmmod, which can each
insert or remove one module from the system.
I'll use the irnet module for this example on my Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS system. Use modinfo to see
more about this module, as shown in Listing 21.
Listing 21. Module information for irrnet

ian@ubuntu:~$ modinfo irnet
ian@attic-u16:~$ modinfo irnet
filename: /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/net/irda/irnet/irnet.ko
alias: char-major-10-187
license: GPL
description: IrNET : Synchronous PPP over IrDA
author: Jean Tourrilhes <jt@hpl.hp.com>
srcversion: 2883ED607A4D54A94830F37
depends: irda
intree: Y
vermagic: 4.4.0-59-generic SMP mod_unload modversions
ian@attic-u16:~$ modinfo -F depends irda
crc-ccitt
As you see, this module has a dependency on irda, which has a further dependency on crc-ccitt.
By using grep to search for irda or crc-ccitt in your modules.dep file, you can see the value of
modularizing driver support. Each of these drivers is used by many other drivers.
If you want to manually load or unload a driver, use modprobe with the -a (or --all) option to load
or insert the module and the -r option to remove or unload the module. The -n, --dry-run, or --
show option shows you what will be done, without doing it. You usually use the -v option with these
to see more information. Listing 22 shows what will happen if I try to load the irda module.

Listing 22. Dry run loading the irnet module

ian@attic-u16:~$ modprobe -nav irnet
insmod /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
insmod /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/net/irda/irda.ko
insmod /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/net/irda/irnet/irnet.ko
The output shows the insmod commands needed to load each required module with dependencies
resolved.
The modprobe command takes into account modules that are already loaded. In Listing 23, I first
load the crc-ccitt module, then do another dry run, and finally load the irnet module. Note that the
actual loading or unloading requires root authority.
Listing 23. Loading the irnet module

ian@attic-u16:~$ sudo modprobe -av crc-ccitt
insmod /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/lib/crc-ccitt.ko
ian@attic-u16:~$ modprobe -nav irnet
ian@attic-u16:~$ sudo modprobe -av irnet
ian@attic-u16:~$ lsmod | grep "ir[dn]\|ccitt"
irnet 24576 0
irda 196608 1 irnet
crc_ccitt 16384 1 irda
You remove modules by using the -r option of modprobe. You cannot remove a module if it is being
used. Listing 24 shows you some examples.
Listing 24. Unloading the irnet module

ian@attic-u16:~$ modprobe -nvr crc-ccitt
modprobe: FATAL: Module crc_ccitt is in use.
ian@attic-u16:~$ modprobe -nvr irnet
rmmod irnet
ian@attic-u16:~$ sudo modprobe -vr crc-ccitt
modprobe: FATAL: Module crc_ccitt is in use.
ian@attic-u16:~$ sudo modprobe -vr irnet
rmmod irnet
rmmod irda
rmmod crc_ccitt
Module parameters
Some modules have parameters. For example, a device driver might need to know which IRQ or
I/O port to use. Listing 25 shows module information for the nsc-ircc module, which has several
such parameters.
Listing 25. Modules with parameters

ian@attic-u16:~$ modinfo nsc-ircc

filename: /lib/modules/4.4.0-59-generic/kernel/drivers/net/irda/nsc-ircc.ko
license: GPL
description: NSC IrDA Device Driver
author: Dag Brattli <dagb@cs.uit.no>
srcversion: 9AA374A6DFC1C886D632DC3
alias: acpi*:IBM0071:*
alias: pnp:dIBM0071*
alias: acpi*:HWPC224:*
alias: pnp:dHWPC224*
alias: acpi*:NSC6001:*
alias: pnp:dNSC6001*
depends: irda
intree: Y
vermagic: 4.4.0-59-generic SMP mod_unload modversions
parm: qos_mtt_bits:Minimum Turn Time (int)
parm: io:Base I/O addresses (array of int)
parm: irq:IRQ lines (array of int)
parm: dma:DMA channels (array of int)
parm: dongle_id:Type-id of used dongle (int)
You specify module parameters on the modprobe command line when loading the module. See the
man page for more details and for details on the other available modprobe options.
This concludes your introduction to hardware settings on Linux.

Related topics
Use the developerWorks roadmap for LPIC-1 to find the developerWorks tutorials to help you
study for LPIC-1 certification based on the LPI Version 4.0 April 2015 objectives.
At the Linux Professional Institute website, find detailed objectives, task lists, and sample
questions for the certifications. In particular, see:
The LPIC-1: Linux Server Professional Certification program details
LPIC-1 exam 101 objectives
LPIC-1 exam 102 objectives
Always refer to the Linux Professional Institute website for the latest objectives.
Learn more about NVMe at NVM Express.
See "Make the most of large drives with GPT and Linux" (developerWorks, July 2009) for
more information on Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and the GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Learn more about hot plugging at the Linux Hotplug Project website and "Hotpluggable
devices and the Linux kernel" by Greg Kroah-Hartman.
Learn more about sysfs in "The sysfs Filesystem" by Patrick Mochel.
Learn more about D-Bus in the D-Bus Tutorial at freedesktop.org.
Copyright IBM Corporation 2015, 2017

(www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml)
Trademarks
(www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/trademarks/)

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Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings

Prepare your system for Linux

Ian Shields February 09, 2017

View more content in this series

Learn more. Develop more. Connect more.

Enable and disable integrated peripherals

Copyright IBM Corporation 2015, 2017 Trademarks

About this series

Hardware history: Jumpers and DIP switches

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 2 of 26

Figure 1. BIOS main screen with date and time settings

Figure 2. Configuring serial, parallel, and on-board devices with BIOS

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 3 of 26

Figure 3. Disabling keyboard or keyboard boot error with BIOS

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 4 of 26

Figure 4. Configuring boot device order with BIOS

Figure 5. Configuring date, time, and on-board devices with UEFI

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 5 of 26

Figure 6. Choosing UEFI boot mode

Figure 7. Secure boot options with UEFI

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 6 of 26

Mass storage devices

Hardware history: Diskettes or floppy disks

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 7 of 26

CD and DVD drives

Flash or thumb drives

Hot plug and cold plug

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 8 of 26

Virtual files for hardware and system information

Sysfs and /sys

Listing 1. Some entries from the sysfs filesystem

Listing 2. Block devices in /sys

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 9 of 26

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

procfs and /proc

Listing 3. Listing of /proc

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 10 of 26

Listing 4. Showing /proc entries for the current process

Listing 5 shows the contents of /proc/interrupts on my system. Older single-processor computers

Listing 5. Listing of /proc/interrupts

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 11 of 26

14: 0 0 IO-APIC-edge pata_atiixp

NMI: 850 888 Non-maskable interrupts

Listing 6. Listing of /proc/interrupts

Listing 7. Listing of /proc/ioports

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 12 of 26

0c6f-0c6f : pnp 00:06

The lsdev command

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 13 of 26

Listing 8. Output from lsdev

udev and /dev

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 14 of 26

Listing 9. Partial listing of /dev

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 15 of 26

crw-------. 1 root root 10, 144 Sep 9 12:11 nvram

Listing 10. Symbolic links to familiar hard drive names

Tools and utilities

PCI and lspci

Listing 11. Using lspci to display desktop PCI devices

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 16 of 26

Listing 12. Using lspci to display notebook PCI devices

Learn Linux, 101: Configure hardware settings Page 17 of 26

Listing 13. Output of lspci -tv

Listing 14. Output of lspci with -d and -k options