Linux makes computers fun, the more you dig into Linux, the more fun it becomes. I recently became aware of the command dmidecode and what a fun and useful tool it is. dmeidecode is the DMI table decoder that will tell you all kinds of things you never knew you wanted to know about your computer. I initially learned of it on the Ask Noah Show and just ran it in terminal to see what what it would kick back on my main machine:
sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
of which was return in a very simple and easy to understand output.
Latitude E6440
Then I started to think, what else can this command tell me about my machine.
sudo dmidecode -s chassis-type
Reported that I was running a:
Laptop
The BIOS information was rather interesting. Just a part of the output of running this:
sudo dmidecode --type 0
Contained a lot of information but this I most enjoyed was seeing:
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
It was interesting to see that although I don’t have one ready to test out on this machine, I can run a 5.25″ floppy. I really don’t know, at this time, how exactly I would go about interfacing a 5.25″ drive but none the less, very cool to see.
If you have some putzing around time, run:
man dmidecode
and play around with some of the functions. You just might find it interesting.
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