Posts Tagged ‘system information’

How to check how many processor and volume groups IBM AIX eServer have

Monday, July 13th, 2020

how-many-cpus-are-on-commands-Linux-sysadmin-and-user-show-know-AIX-logo
In daily sysadmin duties I have been usually administrating GNU / Linux or FreeBSD servers.
However now in my daily sysadmin jobs I've been added to do some minor sysadmin activities on  a few IBM AIX eServers UNIX machines.

As the eServers were completely unknown to me and I logged in for a first time I needed a way to get idea on what kind of hardware I'm logging in so I wanted to get information about the Central Processing UNIT CPUs on the host.

On Linux I'm used to do a cat /proc/cpuinfo or do dmidecode etc. to get the number of CPUs, however AIX does not have /proc/cpuinfo and has its own way to get information about the system hardware.
As I've red in the IBM AIX's RedBook to get system information on AIX there is the lscfg command.
 

aix:/# lscfg
INSTALLED RESOURCE LIST

The following resources are installed on the machine.
+/- = Added or deleted from Resource List.
*   = Diagnostic support not available.

  Model Architecture: chrp
  Model Implementation: Multiple Processor, PCI bus

+ sys0                                                            System Object
+ sysplanar0                                                      System Planar
* vio0                                                            Virtual I/O Bus
* vscsi3           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C21-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* vscsi2           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C20-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* vscsi1           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C11-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* hdisk1           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C11-T1-L8100000000000000  Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
* vscsi0           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C10-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* hdisk0           U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C10-T1-L8100000000000000  Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
* ent3             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C5-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent2             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C4-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent1             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C3-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent0             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C2-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* vsa0             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C0                        LPAR Virtual Serial Adapter
* vty0             U8205.E6B.068D6AP-V4-C0-L0                     Asynchronous Terminal
+ L2cache0                                                        L2 Cache
+ mem0                                                            Memory
+ proc0                                                           Processor
+ proc4                                                           Processor


To get the number of processors on the host I've had to use:

 

aix:/# lscfg|grep -i proc
  Model Implementation: Multiple Processor, PCI bus
+ proc0                                                           Processor
+ proc4                                                           Processor


Another way to get the CPU number is with:

aix:/# lsdev -C -c processor
proc0 Available 00-00 Processor
proc4 Available 00-04 Processor

 

aix:/# lsattr -EH -l proc4
attribute   value          description           user_settable

 

frequency   3720000000     Processor Speed       False
smt_enabled true           Processor SMT enabled False
smt_threads 4              Processor SMT threads False
state       enable         Processor state       False
type        PowerPC_POWER7 Processor type        False

aix:/# lsattr -EH -l proc0
attribute   value          description           user_settable

 

frequency   3720000000     Processor Speed       False
smt_enabled true           Processor SMT enabled False
smt_threads 4              Processor SMT threads False
state       enable         Processor state       False
type        PowerPC_POWER7 Processor type        False


As you can see each of the processor is multicore has 2 Cores and each of the cores have for Threads, to get the overall number of CPUs on the system including the threaded Virtual CPUs:

aix:/# bindprocessor -q
The available processors are:  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7


This specific machine has overall of 8 CPUs cores.

lscfg can be used to get various useful other info of the iron:

aix:/# lscfg -s
INSTALLED RESOURCE LIST

 

The following resources are installed on the machine.
+/- = Added or deleted from Resource List.
*   = Diagnostic support not available.

  Model Architecture: chrp
  Model Implementation: Multiple Processor, PCI bus

+ sys0
        System Object
+ sysplanar0
        System Planar
* vio0
        Virtual I/O Bus
* vscsi3           U8305…………….
        Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* vscsi2           U8305…………….
        Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* vscsi1           U8305…………….
        Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* hdisk1           U8305…………….
        Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
* vscsi0           U8305……………..
        Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
* hdisk0           U8305…………….
        Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
* ent3             U8305…………….
        Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent2             U8305.E6B…………….
        Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent1             U8305.E6B…………….
        Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* ent0             U8305.E6B…………….
        Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
* vsa0             U8305.E7B…………….
        LPAR Virtual Serial Adapter
* vty0             U8305.E7B…………….
        Asynchronous Terminal
+ L2cache0
        L2 Cache
+ mem0
        Memory
+ proc0
        Processor
+ proc4
        Processor

aix:/# lscfg -p
INSTALLED RESOURCE LIST

The following resources are installed on the machine.

  Model Architecture: chrp
  Model Implementation: Multiple Processor, PCI bus

  sys0                                                            System Object
  sysplanar0                                                      System Planar
  vio0                                                            Virtual I/O Bus
  vscsi3           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
  vscsi2           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                     Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
  vscsi1           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
  hdisk1           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1-L8500000000000000  Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
  vscsi0           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                    Virtual SCSI Client Adapter
  hdisk0           U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1-L8500000000000000  Virtual SCSI Disk Drive
  ent3             U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
  ent2             U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
  ent1             U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
  ent0             U8305.E7B…………….V6-C40-T1                     Virtual I/O Ethernet Adapter (l-lan)
  vsa0             U8305.E7B.069D7AP-V5-C1                        LPAR Virtual Serial Adapter
  vty0             U8305.E7B.069D7AP-V5-D1-L0                     Asynchronous Terminal
  L2cache0                                                        L2 Cache
  mem0                                                            Memory
  proc0                                                           Processor
  proc4                                                           Processor

  PLATFORM SPECIFIC

  Name:  IBM,8305-E7B
    Model:  IBM,8305-E7B
    Node:  /
    Device Type:  chrp

  Name:  openprom
    Model:  IBM,AL730_158
    Node:  openprom

  Name:  interrupt-controller
    Model:  IBM, Logical PowerPC-PIC, 00
    Node:  interrupt-controller@0
    Device Type:  PowerPC-External-Interrupt-Presentation

  Name:  vty
    Node:  vty@30000000
    Device Type:  serial
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  l-lan
    Node:  l-lan@30000002
    Device Type:  network
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  l-lan
    Node:  l-lan@30000003
    Device Type:  network
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  l-lan
    Node:  l-lan@30000004
    Device Type:  network
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  l-lan
    Node:  l-lan@30000005
    Device Type:  network
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  v-scsi
    Node:  v-scsi@3000005a
    Device Type:  vscsi
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  v-scsi
    Node:  v-scsi@3000005b
    Device Type:  vscsi
    Physical Location: …………………………………………..

  Name:  v-scsi
    Node:  v-scsi@30000014
    Device Type:  vscsi
    Physical Location: ………………………………..

  Name:  v-scsi
    Node:  v-scsi@30000017
    Device Type:  vscsi
    Physical Location: …………………………………

 


Another useful command I found is to list the equivalent of Linux's LVM Logical Volumes configured on the system, below is how:

aix:/# lspv hdisk0
00f68c6a84acb0d5 rootvg active hdisk1 00f69d6a85400468 dsvg active

To get more info on a volume group:

aix:/# lspv hdisk0 PHYSICAL VOLUME: hdisk0 VOLUME GROUP: rootvg PV IDENTIFIER: 00f68d6a85acb0d5 VG IDENTIFIER 00f68d6a00004c0000000131353444a5 PV STATE: active STALE PARTITIONS: 0 ALLOCATABLE: yes PP SIZE: 32 megabyte(s) LOGICAL VOLUMES: 12 TOTAL PPs: 959 (30688 megabytes) VG DESCRIPTORS: 2 FREE PPs: 493 (15776 megabytes) HOT SPARE: no USED PPs: 466 (14912 megabytes) MAX REQUEST: 256 kilobytes FREE DISTRIBUTION: 191..00..00..110..192 USED DISTRIBUTION: 01..192..191..82..00 MIRROR POOL: None


You can get which local configured partition is set on which ( PV )Physical Volume

aix:/# lspv -l hdisk0
hdisk0:
LV NAME               LPs     PPs     DISTRIBUTION          MOUNT POINT
lg_dumplv             64      64      00..64..00..00..00    N/A
hd8                   1       1       00..00..01..00..00    N/A
hd6                   16      16      00..16..00..00..00    N/A
hd2                   166     166     00..45..89..32..00    /usr
hd4                   29      29      00..11..18..00..00    /
hd3                   40      40      00..04..04..32..00    /tmp
hd9var                55      55      00..00..37..18..00    /var
hd10opt               74      74      00..37..37..00..00    /opt
hd1                   8       8       00..07..01..00..00    /home
hd5                   1       1       01..00..00..00..00    N/A

Getting Console and Graphical hardware system information on Linux with cpuinfo, neofetch, CPU-X (CPU-Z Unix alternative), I-nex and inxi

Tuesday, September 17th, 2019

getting-console-information-and-graphical-hardware-system-information-Linux-cpuinfo-neofetch-cpu-x-i-nex-1

Earlier I've wrote extensive article on how to get hardware information on Linux using tools such as dmidecode, hardinfo, lshw, hwinfo, x86info and biosdecode but there are few other hardware reporting tools for Linux worthy to mention that has been there for historical reasons such as cpuinfo as we as some new shiny ones such as neofetch (a terminal / console hardware report tool as well the CPU-X and I-Nex  which is Linux equivalent to the all known almost standard for Windows hardware detection CPU-Z worthy to say few words about.
 

1. cpuinfo

 

Perhaps the most basic tool to give you a brief information about your Processor type (model) number of Cores and Logical Processors is cpuinfo

I remember cpuinfo has been there since the very beginning on almost all Linux distributions's repository, nowadays its popularity of the days when the kings on the Linux OS server scenes were Slackware, Caldera OpenLinux and Redhat 6.0 Linux and Debian 3.0  declined but still for scripting purposes it is handy small proggie.

To install and run it in Debian  / Ubuntu / Mint Linux etc.:

 

aptitude install -y cpuinfo

/usr/bin/cpu-info

 

Linux-get-processor-system-info-in-console-cpu-info

 

2. neofetch

 

The next one worthy to install and check is neofetch (a cross-platform and easy-to-use system information
 command line script that collects your Linux system information and display it on the terminal next to an image, it could be your distributions logo or any ascii art of your choice.)

The cool thing about neofetch is besides being able to identify the System server / desktop hardware parameters, it gives some basic info about number of packages installed on the system, memory free and in use, used kernel and exact type of System (be it Dell PowerEdge Model XX, IBM eSeries Model / HP Proliant Model etc.

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-desktop-notebook

neofetch info generated on my home used Lenovo Thikpad T420

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-pcfreak-home-server
neofetch info from www.pc-freak.net running current machine

neofetch even supports Mac OS X and Windows OS ! 🙂

To install neofetch on Mac OS X:
 

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"


or via Mac ported packages using brew

brew install neofetch


neofetch-screenshot-from-Mac-OS-X

neofetch is even installable on Windows OS that has the scoop command line installer tool installer manager with below PowerShell code in cmd.exe (Command line):

powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
iex (new-object net.webclient).downloadstring('https://get.scoop.sh')
scoop install git
scoop install neofetch

neofetch-microsoft-windows-hardware-command-line-report-tool-screenshot


By the way Scoop was quite a finding for me and it is pretty handy to install plenty of useful command line Linux / UNIX tools, such as curl, wget, git etc. in the same easy straight forward way as a standard yum or apt-get on Windows (without explicitly installing things as GnuWin and CygWin).
 

3. CPU-X graphical user interface hardware report Linux GUI alternative to Windows CPU-Z


The packages for CPU-X are a bit outdated and even though there are rpm packages for Fedora, OpenSuSE and .deb package for Debian for Debian, Ubuntu and ArchLinux (pacman), there is no up to date version for Debian 10 and the package builds distributed for different Linux distros are a bit outdated.

Thus to install CPU-X on any Linux distribution it is perhaps best to use the portable version (static binary) of CPU-X.
It is currently available on https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases

To install latest portable version of CPU-X

wget https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases/download/v3.2.4/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz

mkdir CPU-X
cd CPU-X

tar -zxvvf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 4563032 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.bsd64
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 5484968 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64

 

cp -rpf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/
ln -sf /usr/local/bin/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/cpu-x


Next run as superuser (root)
 

hipo@jeremiah:~$ su -c 'cpu-x'

 

As seen from below screenshots cpu-x reports a lot of concrete specific hardware data on:

  • Processor
  • Motherboard
  • Memory
  • System
  • Graphic card
  • Performance

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-CPU-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-caches-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-Motherboard-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-memory-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-system-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-graphics-info

CPU-X can be installed also on FreeBSD very easily by just installing from BSD port tree sysutils/cpu-x/
It is also said to work on other *BSDs, NetBSD, OpenBSD Unixes but I guess this will require a manual compilation based on FreeBSD's port Makefile.

4. I-Nex another GUI alternative to CPU-Z for UNIX / Linux

I-Nex is even more useful for general hardware reporting as it reports many hardware specifications not reported by CPU-X such as Battery type and Model Name  (if the hardware report is on a laptop), info on USB devices slots or plugged USB devices brand and specifications, the available Network devices on the system (MAC Addresses) of each of it, Installed and used drivers on Hard Disk (ATA / SATA / SCSI / SSD), HW Sector size, Logical Block size, HDD Sectors count and other specific Hard Drive data as well as information on available Audio (Sound Blaster) devices (HDA-Intel), used Codecs, loaded kernel ALSA driver, Video card used and most importantly indicators on Processor reported CPU (temperature).

 

To install I-nex

Go to https://launchpad.net/i-nex or any of the mirror links where it resides and install the respective package, in my case, I was doing the installation on Debian Linux, so fetched current latest amd64 package which as of moment of writting this article is i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb , next installed it with dpkg
 

dpkg -i i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb

 

As the package was depending on some other .deb packages, which failed to install to install the missing ones I had to further run
 

apt –fix-broken install

i-nex-cpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

hre

I-Nex thermal indicators about CPU temperature on a Linux Desktop notebook

i-nex-gpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-mobo-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-audio-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-drivers-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-system-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-battery-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

There are other Hardware identification report tools such as CUDA-Z that are useful to check if you have Nvidia Video Card hardware Installed on the PC to check the status of CUDA enabled GPUs, useful if working with nVidia Geforce, Quadro, Tesla cards and ION chipsets.

If you use it however be aware that CUDA-Z is not compatible with 3rd-party linux drivers for NVidia so make sure you have the current official Nvidia version.

 

5. Inxi full featured system information script

 

Inxi is a 10000 lines mega bash script that fetches hardware details from multiple different sources in /proc /sys and from commands on the system, and generates a beautiful looking console report that non technical users can read easily.

inxi-10-k-mega-bash-shell-script-reporting-on-installed-system-computer-hardware

 

inxi -Fx

 

 

inxi-report-on-installed-hardware-on-my-lenovo-thinkpad-home-laptop

Each of the pointed above tools has different method of collection of Hardware information from various resources e.g. – kernel loaded modules, dmesg, files like /proc/meminfo /proc/version /proc/scsi/scsi /proc/partitions.
Hence some of the tools are likely to report more info than otheres, so in case if some information you need regarding the system plugged in hardware is missing you can perhaps obtain it from another program. Most Linux distribution desktop provided GNOME package are including Hardinfo gui tool, but in many cases above mentioned tools are likely to add even more on info on what is inside your PC Box.
If you're aware of others tools that are useful not mentioned here please share it.

Get Hardware System info on Debian Linux / How to detecting hardware and servers model on GNU / Linux

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

hardware-info-getting-on-linux-howto

Users who are novice to Linux should be probably interested on how to get a decent Hardware System Information. Getting system info on Windows is quite straight forward, however on Linux and especially on Linux servers it is a bit confusing at first and even for people who spend years administrating Linux servers, or even have a Linux desktop it is very likely after a period of time to forget how exactly last time got the hardware system information. I'm administrating Linux servers and running a linux desktop for already almost 11 years and often it happened I'm away from configuring a new server for a year, or even when configuring a new server I don't need to get exact system information from command line, as I know it already from the server hardware manual. However whether managing a bunch of dedicated servers or purchasing new systems which are physically away and someone pre-configured the server with some basis Linux install, often a very raw info is provided by the Dedicated Provider on exact server metrics. Other situation, where it is good idea to have a precise system hardware vendor information on a server, is if you just joined a company with a bunch of existing dedicated servers, whose exact hardware configuration is no documented anywhere and suddenly some RAID or piece of hardware located on 1 of the 100 dedicated servers starts misbehaving causing hour down-times and client important data loss.

In any of those cases it always takes me few times of research to find out what exact methodology I used to get the hardware info last time. To make my life for future times easier and not loose the few minutes of research and reading on how to get Linux server system information I decided to write this short article, which might hopefully be useful to others out there who face similar periodic questioning on what was the command to get hardware system info.

Of course the general commands to get some general overview on a Linux server as anyone knows are:

a. dmesg
b. cat /proc/cpuinfo
c. lspci
d. lsusb
c. free -m

A note to make here is that in order to have lsusb and lspci commands present you will have to have installed the deb packs lsusb and pciutils.

However as I prior said, this tools output is not enough or the output is not enough systematic and hard to read and understand especially for lazy or short memory admins like me. Thus it is worthy to mention few others which can be installed as a separate packages and gives more structured and very precised information on what kind of machine hardware you're accessing through ssh.

Here is the list of all of profiled hardware detection progs and scripts:

1. dmidecode

2. lshw

3. x86info

4. hwinfo

5. hardinfo

6. biosdecode

 

To install all of them in a raw with apt-get do:

debian:~# apt-get install --yes dmidecode lshw x86info hwinfo hardinfo superiotool
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
dmidecode is already the newest version.
hardinfo is already the newest version.
lshw is already the newest version.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libhd16
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  hwinfo libhd16 superiotool x86info
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
Need to get 827 kB of archives.
After this operation, 4,506 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main libhd16 amd64 16.0-2 [696 kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main hwinfo amd64 16.0-2 [46.6 kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main superiotool amd64 0.0+r5050-1 [43.0 kB]
Get:4 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main x86info amd64 1.25-1 [40.9 kB]
Fetched 827 kB in 2s (378 kB/s)  
Selecting previously deselected package libhd16.
(Reading database ... 85783 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libhd16 (from .../libhd16_16.0-2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package hwinfo.
Unpacking hwinfo (from .../hwinfo_16.0-2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package superiotool.
Unpacking superiotool (from .../superiotool_0.0+r5050-1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package x86info.
Unpacking x86info (from .../x86info_1.25-1_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up libhd16 (16.0-2) ...
Setting up hwinfo (16.0-2) ...
Setting up superiotool (0.0+r5050-1) ...
Setting up x86info (1.25-1) ...

Next just try to launch the tools one by one and check the content of the output, in my view  the most useful one and maybe also the most popular is dmidecode, the rest however might be useful to get specific hardware debug info.

1.  hwinfo

debian:~# hwinfo |tee -a server-hardware-info.txt
....

hwinfo will provide you a very long list of very thoroughful information on hardware. A lot of the info it shows however is not so useful for regular admins, but will be of high value to people who need to develop a new Linux driver for respective hardware.

2. lswh

debian:~# lshw > linux-hw-info.txt

lshw provides long list of debug information and if the output is not redirected to a file the screen gets flooded, if not piped to less. For that reason I will not paste output here.

3. x86info

debian:~# x86info

x86info v1.25.  Dave Jones 2001-2009
Feedback to <davej@redhat.com>.

Found 2 CPUs
————————————————————————–
CPU #1

EFamily: 0 EModel: 2 Family: 6 Model: 42 Stepping: 7
CPU Model: Unknown model.
Processor name string: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G630 @ 2.70GHz
Type: 0 (Original OEM)    Brand: 0 (Unsupported)
Number of cores per physical package=8
Number of logical processors per socket=16
Number of logical processors per core=2
APIC ID: 0x0    Package: 0  Core: 0   SMT ID 0
————————————————————————–
CPU #2
EFamily: 0 EModel: 2 Family: 6 Model: 42 Stepping: 7
CPU Model: Unknown model.
Processor name string: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G630 @ 2.70GHz
Type: 0 (Original OEM)    Brand: 0 (Unsupported)
Number of cores per physical package=8
Number of logical processors per socket=16
Number of logical processors per core=2
APIC ID: 0x2    Package: 0  Core: 0   SMT ID 2
————————————————————————–
WARNING: Detected SMP, but unable to access cpuid driver.
Used Uniprocessor CPU routines. Results inaccurate.

As you see x86info, mainly provides information on CPU Cache, exact model, family AND APIC (don't mix it with ACPI – advanced power management interface)
APIC is a chip that remaps IOs and IRQs of your computer to the CPU(s), thus in most cases it is more of not so needed debug information.

4. biosdecode

debian:~#  biosdecode
# biosdecode 2.9
ACPI 2.0 present.
    OEM Identifier: LENOVO
    RSD Table 32-bit Address: 0xBCD9C028
    XSD Table 64-bit Address: 0x00000000BCD9C068
SMBIOS 2.6 present.
    Structure Table Length: 2233 bytes
    Structure Table Address: 0x000EBB70
    Number Of Structures: 59
    Maximum Structure Size: 184 bytes
PNP BIOS 1.0 present.
    Event Notification: Not Supported
    Real Mode 16-bit Code Address: F000:BC66
    Real Mode 16-bit Data Address: F000:0000
    16-bit Protected Mode Code Address: 0x000FBC8E
    16-bit Protected Mode Data Address: 0x000F0000
PCI Interrupt Routing 1.0 present.
    Router ID: 00:1f.0
    Exclusive IRQs: None
    Compatible Router: 8086:27b8
    Slot Entry 1: ID 00:1f, on-board
    Slot Entry 2: ID 00:1b, on-board
    Slot Entry 3: ID 00:16, on-board
    Slot Entry 4: ID 00:1c, on-board
    Slot Entry 5: ID 02:00, slot number 21
    Slot Entry 6: ID 00:01, on-board
    Slot Entry 7: ID 00:06, on-board
    Slot Entry 8: ID 00:1d, on-board
    Slot Entry 9: ID 00:1a, on-board
    Slot Entry 10: ID 03:00, on-board
    Slot Entry 11: ID 00:02, on-board
    Slot Entry 12: ID 00:00, on-board

As you see biosdecode, also provides a lot of hex addresses, also reports on the exact CPU architecture on the system.

The line   XSD Table 64-bit Address: 0x00000000BCD9C068, indicated the host is running a 64 bit CPU, most of the rest info like Slot entries IDs etc. is not so useful.

The most useful info that biosdecode provides is the exact type of BIOS (Basic Input Output System) bundled with the system in my case the BIOS is running on a Lenovo host and is vendored by Lenovo, thus it shows in the cmd output:

OEM Identifier: LENOVO

5. hardinfo

debian:~# hardinfo | tee -a hardware-info.txt


hardinfo gnome screenshot debian gnu / linux

HardInfo is the GNOME GTK+ program which displays robust and thouroughful info in same was as Windows System Info does on  GNOME Desktop. If however you run it under console or via ssh it does display what it detects as: 

Computer hardware, operating system, kernel modules, supported system languages, existing filesystems, Display, set environment variables, Existing system users, Processor type, Memory, PCI and USB devices, Printers (if attached), Battery type (if run on laptop), Storage, Other Input devices

hardinfo, does a few benchmarking tests using CPU stress test algorithms to do Blowfish encryption, CryptoHash, Fibonacci, N-Queens, FPU FFT and FPU raytracing. This benchmark values, if run on a couple of hosts can be used to compare different hardware performances.

6. dmidecode

debian: # dmidecode > system-hware-info.txt

The output from dmidecode is very very detailed and verbose. Though along with the useful info there is plenty of debug information, the debug information it provides is much user friendly / user comprehensible than the rest of tools, thus I guess dmidecode is nowadays preferred by me and probably most of the Linux sys admins.

debian:~# dmidecode |head -n 34
# dmidecode 2.9
SMBIOS 2.6 present.
59 structures occupying 2233 bytes.
Table at 0x000EBB70.

Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
    Vendor: LENOVO
    Version: 9QKT37AUS
    Release Date: 02/14/2012
    Address: 0xF0000
    Runtime Size: 64 kB
    ROM Size: 2560 kB
    Characteristics:
        PCI is supported
        BIOS is upgradeable
        BIOS shadowing is allowed
        Boot from CD is supported
        Selectable boot is supported
        BIOS ROM is socketed
        EDD is supported
        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)
        Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
        8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
        Serial services are supported (int 14h)
        Printer services are supported (int 17h)
        ACPI is supported
        USB legacy is supported
        BIOS boot specification is supported
        Targeted content distribution is supported
    BIOS Revision: 0.37
 

Though it is the most useful tool on some hardware configurations it might not display any data because the BIOS is lacking a DMI implementation.

In almost all cases dmidecode is enough to check what kind of hardware you have ssh-ed to. dmidecode is available also not only on Debian but on Fedora and almost all (if not all Linux distros), through default repositories.