Some time ago, a colleague asked me to find the drivers for her XP laptop. She didn't have the rescue discs, her recovery partition didn't work, and her knowledge of the computer's hardware was equal to zero.
The driver hunt took me some time...especially because first I had to find out what hardware that computer was using and the owner of the pc didn't help.
Today at the Mepis Forum, a fellow Mepis user named Uncle Mark posted a similar experience. However, he had a better idea than just going the painful "Windows way": He used Linux!
He booted a Mepis 11 Live DVD, and once on Mepis, he opened the command line and typed:
lspci
Following that, in his own words:
"And there it was, pretty as you please, a list of all the hardware with vendor names and model numbers. Copied it to a text file, then onto a thumb drive, and went back to my desktop."
Back in my Windows days, if I had witnessed someone doing anything like that, I'd have told that person: "forget about Windows and install that magic system instead, please!" :P
Too bad too many people in the same situation won't notice and will go with the Win installation anyway...
Still, this is a very fine trick I'll make sure to remember! Thanks, Uncle Mark; thanks, Tux!
That's a nice trick!
ResponderEliminarWell, we might not need it any longer, but it's good to know, hehe
I think it's also handy in case you need help with your Linux box...or if you are curious to know what your PC has inside! :P
ResponderEliminar