Basic Computer and OS Information Using uname

Need a little information on the computer OS your using? uname is the perfect command for that. Lets say your installing some software on a friends computer that you know nothing about, or maybe your not sure if you need the 64 or 32 bit version of a program. The uname command can save the day.

By typing man uname you can read all about the options that can be used with this command. For the sake of simplicity and keeping this blog post short we're going to use the -a option. This is the all option and will give you just about all the information you would get from using the separate options. For instance, uname -p tells you your using a x86_64 bit processor. Now you know you can install that 64bit version of that software you wanted to install.

I Gimped the computer name for reasons of paranoia. This is the basic output from the uname -a command.

Here's the output I get from uname -a

Linux localhost.localdomain 3.14.8-200.fc20.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Jun 16 21:57:53 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This tells me that I'm running Linux, the name of the network node is localhost.localdomain very helpful when doing networking, I'm using 3.14.8.fc20.x86_64  which translates to kernel version 3.14.8 Fedoracore 20 x86_64  basically Fedora 20 64bit. I have no clue what #1 is ? Maybe one of the readers could leave a comment if you know? SMP is Symmetric multi-processing I'm pretty sure this means I'm running multiple processors, the date the kernel was compiled Mon Jun 16 21:57:53 UTC 2014, the system architecture x86_64, meaning its a 64 bit system in this case, and again x86_64 GNU/Linux operating system.

Thats a lot of information in a quick keystroke. The command comes in handy when working on unfamiliar systems, or when logged onto  a computer remotely. To find out more about uname try either man uname or uname --help.

CLI List All USB Devices From The Command Line

lsusb is a great command to list all the USB devices on your computer in Linux. If you have Linux-kernel-2.3.15 or newer just open up your favorite terminal program and type lsusb

lsusb -v is verbose
man lsusb man page

Site Review Linuxcommand.org

Looking for some basic information on Linux shell commands and getting around in the terminal, I discovered this site. Linuxcommand.org. The site really covers the basics and then some on getting around the terminal. If you need to learn the basics this looks like a great place to start. Topics include :

What Is "The Shell"?
Navigation
Looking Around
A Guided Tour
Manipulating Files
Working With Commands
I/O Redirection
Expansion
Permissions
Job Control


Not only does it cover the basics of getting around the terminal, but it also covers basic shell scripts and how to create your own. Topics in this category include :

Writing Your First Script And Getting It To Work
Editing The Scripts You Already Have
Here Scripts
Variables
Command Substitution And Constants
Shell Functions
Some Real Work
Flow Control - Part 1
Stay Out Of Trouble
Keyboard Input And Arithmetic
Flow Control - Part 2
Positional Parameters
Flow Control - Part3
Errors And Signals And Traps (Oh My!) - Part 1
Errors And Signals And Traps (Oh My!) - Part 2


If you're new to Linux and looking for a good place to start, I strongly suggest this site. linuxcommand.org.