Know Your Hardware
Objective: Identify the physical components inside your machine and query them from the command line.
You're working on a computer. You should know what's inside it. Not at an electrical engineering level, but enough to tell someone what you're running, what it's capable of, and what you'd need to upgrade if the job required it.
Understand what each component does: CPU executes instructions, RAM is short-term memory, storage is long-term memory, NIC is the network connection, motherboard connects everything.
lscpu CPU details free -h RAM in human-readable format lsblk Block devices (storage drives and partitions) lspci All PCI devices (NICs, GPU, controllers) lsusb All USB devices connected sudo dmidecode -t memory Detailed RAM info (slots, speed, type) cat /proc/cpuinfo Raw CPU information ip link show Network interfaces - 1
Run every command listed. Record the output.
- 2
Write a hardware spec sheet for your machine in plain English: CPU, core count, RAM amount, storage type and size, NIC (wired/wireless), GPU.
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If your machine has an access panel, open it. Identify the CPU heatsink/fan, the RAM sticks, the storage drive, and the NIC. If it's a laptop, find a teardown video for your exact model and watch it.
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Answer this: If you needed to add more RAM to this machine, what type would you buy? What is the maximum it supports?