New feature in inxi, version 1.7.0

-d triggers full optical device output, and shows the -D data as well. You may notice that also the line starter is now called: Drives instead of the old Disks, that makes sense since ssd drives are not disks, nor is a cdrom drive a disk, but it is a drive, so drive it is.



-dx adds a few features and rev version:


You may or may not notice some useful features here. First, inxi reads your /dev and finds the true non symbolic link to the drive, that's the ID field. Then it gets the device brand/model, rev version, and then shows the links to it in /dev. That can be useful information to set up or debug system issues like telling an audio or ripping app which drive to use.

Then the features line shows details, as much as can be found, of the drive itself. That seems to be reasonably reliable back to kernel 2.6.26 at least, so that's nice to have as well.

The -F output uses a shortened version of this, no features line, unless you do: -Fd

That's too keep the -F somewhat under control.

Also, -b (basic), the old -d, now shows the same as -v 2, which means also -M and -N. That's I think overall more useful.

-v6 shows pretty much all the stuff except for the specialized things like -t, -f, -r etc.

And that's it for another new feature.

I don't know if this works for blueray so if someone has one give it a try and post the output, if it doesn't, I'll need some debugging data collection to fix that.
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As of 1.7.7

A lot of internal optimizations which result in a noticeable boost in performance, literally several seconds for output on old machines, but noticeable as well on newer hardware.

Cleaned up and improved debugging data collector, again not something most people need to see.

Added line wrapping to most lines that can get too long, and created internal logic to make that more reliable and predictable in terms of length of lines in output for irc/console.

The most noticeable changes done recently for people running inxi are:

1. The old -d option has been changed to -b. -b has been changed from showing -v1 to -v2 output. Basically that adds -N and -M data.
   
2. -F no longer shows -x output by default, that's mainly to avoid non-necessary line wrapping caused by extra data. The short-lived -d output on -F has been removed, keeping to just the -D data, which is more dynamic and useful to see.
   
3. -x now shows in -S the gcc version the kernel was compiled with. Useful information. Probably will also collect all installed gcc versions for a future extra data line for system.
   
4. New user set options can adjust line-lengths for irc or console. Read about how to set inxi user options on the wiki.
   
5. Created a set inxi user options on the wiki page for the first time, to document, somewhat, the various inxi alternate configuration possibilities. Keep in mind however that when you show the stuff on irc, it has to work on everyone's client, not just yours, so avoid changing the defaults too much for IRC output. Console/terminal output of course only you see, so you can make that whatever you want to suite your tastes.
   
6. Added ability to have automatic upload to techpatterns.com ftp of debugging data with -xx option, like:
   inxi -xx@ 14
   note that the -xx must come before the -@ part or it won't work.

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Would it be possible for inxi to use ip in place of ifconfig?

I don't have net-tools as my distro is currently depreciating it in place of iproute2.

This is just minor btw since only the "state" for my network is affected (unknown).
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inxi was recently switched from defaulting to ip (iproute) from ifconfig (net-tools) precisely because distros are finally beginning to move to iproute and deprecating net-tools (ifconfig), so not only would it be possible, that is precisely what it uses as primary LAN ip v4/v6 information source (-i), ie, whatever you have in your system is what inxi will use, but it will always prefer ip over ifconfig if ip is present.

Amazingly, for once, I was somewhat ahead of the curve on the ip vs ifconfig switch.

However, that's not related to the 'unknown' you see, that 'unknown' is in fact a string value returned by the file that is queried in /sys/ and the value of that file is 'unknown'.

If the data returned is blank. or null, then inxi would show: N/A

I've recently worked on getting all inxi outputs and null values to be handled the same, ie, anytime you see a: N/A you know that the system had no information.

The 'unknown' value seems to be related to the kernel version more than anything else I can see, ie, I have systems where on older, say, 2.6.37, kernels, that shows the 'unknown' string, but on 2.6.39, it shows the actual data, ie, up, down.

The -n functions do not interact with the -i function in any particular way, and only -i uses ip/ifconfig for its data. This is to keep the recommends at a minimum, -n and -N use system tools and files to get the data, and the LAN ip section of -i uses ip addr because I can find no other way to get the LAN information of the nics from the system in any consistently reliable way.



-b for basic output (same as -v 2), -i for full network/ip, -x for extra network, -z for output filtering of ip/mac addresses.

Also note that if the return data was null, you will see N/A, but with filtering, if it was NOT null, you will see <filter> instead of the data.

by the way, when posting issues, make sure to show the output of inxi, and of course, make sure that you have updated to the latest inxi with inxi -U first.

You can run: inxi --recommends
to see the packages it thinks you may need, those are updated now for debian based distros, arch linux, and yum using ones, more or less.
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Major bug fix, expecially for distro maintainers: 1.7.27 - fixes a failure to detect usb wifi cards completely, that may never have been working, though I could swear it was in the past.

Also fixed, a failure to detect some broadcom networking cards, there was a different syntax.

This latter fix added a recommends, find (in findutils in Debian), but that should be in most distros.

Again, if you package this, update to the current version for correct networking id.
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wouldn't it be a good idea to have Audio in the basic output, inxi -b?
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Not really, that's what -F is for.

If we add in everything to basic that full, which is actually not full, but rather more than basic but not everything, then there would be no point to -F.

-b relates to the core functionality of your system, ie, system info, hardware,cpu,graphics card (because graphics issues are probably the top thing support people have to deal with), networking, for the same reason, basic disk info and system state.

-F expands on these categories and adds things that are also useful but not always needed to see, like audio, basic partition information, and sensors output if required.

If you run these commands on look carefully at the output you'll see:

inxi
inxi -b
inxi -F
inxi -v 7

you'll see how the information is increased with a reasonable attempt at logic in terms of what you need to see.

Since one reason inxi exists is to give irc support, it's important to avoid spamming stuff, and to make sure the fewest lines for each type of output are offered.

Since audio issues aren't that common compared to networking and graphics, audio didn't make the cut for -b. and that's why we have -A, individual line triggers for each line, and -x, to show extra data for any line item that it triggers.
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i see. thank you for the detailed answer.
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New feature is now live: -R

-R shows all mdraid in the system, or shows none.

-b triggers a short form for this output.

-Rx adds a second raid info line per device.

-Rxx adds more info everywhere, and also shows system supported raid options and other things. As well as the unmounted device information.

This is all derived from /proc/mdstat.

I didn't test for a case if there is no mdstat file, forgot.

Since this is a new option, -R, inxi gets a version update, to 1.8.0
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tested it for you :D if there is none, isn't a good idea not to show it in -b ?
i wanted to ask this for a long time. is there any way to remove duplicate items in the -M output in -b? all i see is lenovo everywere and the product and the model are the same for me. i realize that other manufacturers have other names for their products. i am just curious.

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