The lsdev command displays various information about a system’s hardware as reported by the kernel. It compiles this information from three files in the /proc/ directory:
- /proc/interrupts — This file lists each logical CPU core and its associated interrupt requests (IRQ). An IRQ is a signal sent by a device to the processor so that the processor can stop what it is doing and handle some task that the hardware needs to perform, like pressing a keystroke or moving the mouse. There are multiple IRQ addresses that signals can be sent along, and for each address, this file lists how many signals were sent to each CPU core along that address. It also names the hardware device that is mapped to each IRQ address.
- /proc/ioports —This file lists I/O ports and the hardware devices that are mapped to them.
- /proc/dma —This file lists all Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) director memory access (DMA) channels on the system. ISA DMA is a hardware controller that typically supports legacy technology like floppy disks.
If you encounter the below error while running the lsdev command:
lsdev: command not found
you may try installing the below package as per your choice of distribution:
| OS Distribution | Command |
|---|---|
| Debian | apt-get install procinfo |
| Ubuntu | apt-get install procinfo |
| Arch Linux | pacman -S procinfo-ng |
| Kali Linux | apt-get install procinfo |
| Fedora | dnf install procinfo |
| Raspbian | apt-get install procinfo |
Conclusion
The primary focus of the lsdev command is to display hardware dma, ioports, and interrupts. This command gathers the information from the /proc/dma, /proc/ioports, and /proc/interrupts files and displays the information in an easy-to-read format.