Playing in the terminal | dmidecode

utilities-terminalLinux 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.

External Links

Ask Noah Show Episode 52

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