Hardware detection

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Hardware recognition is a technical term from the field of computer technology . , It refers to the ability of modern operating systems to independently identify which components, plug-in cards and peripherals on the motherboard ( mainboard are connected). Modern hardware interfaces ( ATA , PCI , USB ) are set up for this. When asked, they output an information string that contains the device category, the manufacturer and a manufacturer-specific designation. This information is compared with the information in the installed device drivers ; if they match, the driver is integrated. If a device is recognized that is not present in the configuration last saved , the integration takes place after a query.

The hardware detection is a system service that is started when the computer is booted. In the case of hot- pluggable interfaces, a change in the connected peripherals is recognized.

Hardware information

There are auxiliary programs that prepare the display of information for different target groups, but these mostly use the same mechanism to collect the data.

Linux

In many Linux distributions, such as SuSE and Debian , the program is called hwinfo . This program can only be run as root . At Red Hat , the program is called Kudzu . Large desktop environments such as GNOME and KDE each contain their own programs for the user-friendly display of this data without root access.

Windows

There is also automatic device detection under Windows . This can also be called up manually as a device manager. Under WinNT4 the program is called ntdetect.com . The file is located on the WinNT4 setup CD under: \ i386 \ debug \ ntdetect.chk. There is a version of hwinfo for Windows computers that delivers similar results after installation.

Plug-and-play cards make hardware recognition easier for the operating system. The hardware detection programs have problems with exotic or old components, such as some ISA cards.

Clear representations of hardware information , such as those generated by the CPU-Z program , are particularly popular with overclockers .

Web links

1. ↑ hwinfo manpage in the Ubuntu manpages