- Does Ubuntu Come with a Device Manager? | 3 Best Alternatives
- HardInfo
- How to Install hardinfo on Ubuntu?
- CPU-G
- How to Install CPU-G on Ubuntu?
- Neofetch
- How to Install Neofetch on Ubuntu?
- Conclusion
- Does Ubuntu have a «device manager» equivalent? And what is an easy way to access USB drives?
- Linux equivalent of Windows Device Manager / DevCon utility?
- 5 Answers 5
- Linux Device Management Solution for Laptops and Desktops
- Manage all Linux devices with one simple platform
- Flexible Linux Device Management for Ubuntu & Other Debian Distributions
- Device Profiles
- Enrollment Configurations
- Device Inventory Insights
- Password Policy
- Perform Remote Actions
- Linux Shell Scripts
- Groups
Does Ubuntu Come with a Device Manager? | 3 Best Alternatives
Device manager is an important tool available for Windows users, which allows them to configure and control their hardware components effectively. If you are switching to Ubuntu OS, you might wonder if there are any such tools available for this distribution.
The quick answer to the question is “No” it does not come with the device manager, but some alternate solutions come closer to it to give you the same experience.
This will list the best alternatives of the Device Manager in Ubuntu:
HardInfo
Hardinfo provides detailed information for your system hardware and software, which will give you a detailed insight if something is outdated or up-to-date. This way, you can easily improve your system performance and troubleshoot the error to reduce lags.
Another great thing about this tool is that all its information is easy to understand and not cluttered. You will find no difference when you compare it with the device manager available in windows.
How to Install hardinfo on Ubuntu?
To install it, you need to type the following command as mentioned below:
$ sudo apt install hardinfo
After its installation; you can launch it by writing the below command in the terminal:
Just like the device manager, this tool has an almost identical interface when you side by side compared it with the device manager as shown below:
You can see that these two tools are almost identical. Still, hardinfo has a major drawback as you cannot use this tool to update system drivers, which can be done using a device manager.
CPU-G
Another GUI-based tool that gives you a detailed insight into your hardware and software is a “CPU-G” tool. This tool will give you all the information related to your CPU, GPU, Network, and memory so you can troubleshoot your issue based on this information.
How to Install CPU-G on Ubuntu?
To install it on Ubuntu, you need to type the following command in the terminal:
Its interface is different if you are looking for the same interface found in the device manager, but still, it is very easy to understand, and you can easily navigate to find your desired information. You can launch it through the application manager, and its main interface is shown below:
Neofetch
Not all tools in Ubuntu come with a fancy and attractive interface, and one such tool could be the “neofetch”. The purpose of this tool is the same as the device manager to give you the system information more simply.
How to Install Neofetch on Ubuntu?
To install it on Ubuntu, you can type the below command:
$ sudo apt install neofetch
To execute this tool; you need to type the below command in the terminal:
The detailed information about the system specifications can be seen in the above image.
Conclusion
Ubuntu does not come with any default Device Manager as in windows, however, there are a few tools that serve the best replacement. This post has presented the best alternatives for the Device Manager in Ubuntu: HardInfo, CPU-G, and Neofetch.
Does Ubuntu have a «device manager» equivalent? And what is an easy way to access USB drives?
I just started with Ubuntu and I am learning how to use it properly. I am a bit confused however about 2 things. Firstly, Is there a «device manager»(windows) equivalent in Ubuntu? How can I see what devices are seen by the system + drivers installed? Secondly, I noticed that Ubuntu doesn’t use C:\ or D:\ drive, how would I select hard drive without the letters? I see that USB drives are in /media/(LONG STRING), is there an easier way to access USB drive or other hard drives? I put in reasonable effort to learn as much as I can with the use of documentation provided, but those 2 things kind of confuse me at this point and I was wondering if someone could clarify this. Thanks 🙂
Device Manager: Try ‘lsusb’ and ‘lspci’. Do you have hardware that you believe is not being detected?
lspci works great. It confirmed that my USB 3.0 control is indeed connected to the PCI and is recognized, but when I plug a USB device into it, it doesn’t show in «my computer». How do I update the drivers or how do I even view the drivers currently installed?
USB storage devices and HDDs should appear in the left side panel of the file browser. They are usually identifiable by size and partition labels, as well as UUIDs. To see the drivers that are currently in use, run lspci -nnk , or use hardinfo program from the repositories. Updating drivers is rarely necessary, and is rather difficult.
gnome-disks shows all devices attached to your system as well as options to detach them safely. and if you use a file browser the equivalent of C;\ on windows is your /home/
Linux equivalent of Windows Device Manager / DevCon utility?
I was wondering if there is any Linux equivalent to Windows Device Manager, or the Windows DevCon utility (a command line utility with hardware management functionality). Do drivers even work the same way in Linux?
5 Answers 5
The functionality provided by Windows devcon is covered by various facilties and commands in Linux.
The «plug and play» manager of Linux is usually udev . udev is responsible for recognizing hardware changes, (possibly) autoloading modules, and creating nodes in /dev if needed. If you wish to do something such as simulate a USB device removal under Linux (something that devcon can do), commands that interact with the running udevd should be used, I believe. I haven’t done this under Linux but you can start by learning more about udev .
lsmod will display all currently loaded kernel modules. Device drivers are one function of a kernel module. insmod will load and start a module if possible, and most of the time cause the device to appear in /dev . rmmod does the reverse. If you execute an lsmod you’ll notice some modules are dependent on others, rmmod won’t let you remove a module if something depends on it. modprobe with its options handles dependencies.
Under Linux, modules can also be «built-in» to the kernel, and they won’t appear in any module list. They are immediately and always available the moment the kernel is loaded by the bootloader. Another option is to place modules in a directory within an «initial ramdisk» ( initrd ) which is also loaded by the bootloader and immediately accessible to the kernel on boot. «Installing» or «updating» device drivers may involve creating a new or updated kernel with the module built-in, or adding/updating it in the initrd if it is not there. Most distributions provide tools and utilties to do this.
You usually would not have to worry about installing or obtaining a third-party driver unless it is not included in the «official» kernel from kernel.org — since kernel modules (including drivers) are part of the kernel, drivers for every supported device are also included, and usually provided with your distribution. So needing to install a «manufacturer-provided driver» under Linux isn’t terribly common except possibly for video drivers and some wireless chipsets which still have a lot of legal encumbrances with regard to technical information needed by driver developers.
lshw can give you most of this information in a tree-like format. lspci , lsusb , lsscsi , and lscpu are also very helpful. Most busses such as PCI, SCSI, USB, have a lot of userland utilities available in most Linux distributions that you can use to configure and get information of specific classes of devices (example: hdparm ). And almost all mentioned in this paragraph, and more, are just frontends to various files and directories in /proc and /sys ; you’ll want to use the utilities though in most cases.
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Device Profiles
Create policy groups that can be utilized across various devices to simplify device management. Set up policies for USB devices and Wi-Fi settings, and distribute them to multiple devices.
Enrollment Configurations
Create a mass enrollment configuration and generate an enrollment command that can be utilized on one or numerous devices to register them with Scalefusion.
Device Inventory Insights
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Password Policy
Secure your managed devices by applying a password policy by setting password rules like password type, minimum length, minimum digits, password expiry, etc. and forcing the users to set a secure password.
Perform Remote Actions
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Linux Shell Scripts
Upload bash scripts and deploy them to the managed devices, and access a comprehensive output that facilitates easy administration tasks.
Groups
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