by wintpe » Aug 11th, '14, 11:18
yes there was a whole list of options there in my original post to extract info,
I tried to summarise all the useful commands, and as docktor pointed out, only about the first 20-30lines of dmi decode is useful.
But to answer your question about a GUI tool.
there are gui tools under each desktop, you will find for example hardware info under mageia control center.
But linux is: and certainly most of the expert users are "command line interface, driven".
You should as simply a user be able to use a linux desktop, with never opening a "linux equivalent to the windows cmd shell"
but as soon as it all goes pete tong, you usually have to resort to CLI, as often the whole graphical user interface has failed.
in windows land, this would usually mean a blue screen of death and a re-install.
In linux land there's always a recovery option, even if painful, and long winded.
other less catastrophic problems can usually be much better understood when looking at the output of a CLI command, and many of the linux gui tools just issue cli options behind the scenes.
Linux is also a server operation system, as well as the guts behind many appliances, my humax PVR runs linux, many wireless access points run linux, and although again as a user you never need look at the command line, if you want to do anything out of the ordinary, or understand why they not be working correctly, the command line is a valuable resource.
If however you have no yearning to use linux for anything more than a secure and reliable, fast desktop, stick to a live dvd version, and if anything goes wrong, just reinstall it, and make sure your data is backed up somewhere safe, like you have to in the windows world.
regards peter
Redhat 6 Certified Engineer (RHCE)
Sometimes my posts will sound short, or snappy, however its realy not my intention to offend, so accept my apologies in advance.