Linux admins have a love affair with information. The more information they can gather the better. And that’s a good thing, as the more informed you are, the more apt you’ll be to make smart decisions. This applies to administration tasks, security, development, and just about anything else you can imagine.

Besides, why wouldn’t you want to be as informed about your systems as possible?

You might need to get information about a CPU to find out if it includes virtualization support. Or maybe you gather information on total and available RAM. Do you know the manufacturer of your BIOS, its release number, and the currently enabled options?

You might know this information when you first deploy a system, and maybe if you’re really good about documentation. But on systems that have been deployed for some time (and you haven’t done your documentation), or when you’ve deployed on cloud-based hosts, you’re going to want the tools to dig out the details.

Fortunately, Linux has a good amount of commands for this very task. This article from TechRepublic Premium will introduce you to some of most useful commands to help you in your journey with Linux.