What hardware do you need to support? You particularly want to know your processor, hard drives and controllers, your NIC, graphics and sound cards. Use the lspci utility:
lspci # or, if necessary, /sbin/lspci
which gives you a comprehensive listing. Save, print or write this down as necessary. Particularly note your:
- Ethernet contoller (NIC)
- Audio controller (sound card)
- VGA controller (video card)
Next, get your cpu info. Type:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Again, write this down. Note your:
- cpu family (e.g., 6, which indicates i686)
- vendor_id (manufacturer)
(See the WikiPedia entry for more discussion of i-numbering schemes.)