You can obtain information on the Basic Input/Output (BIOS) in a system running the Linux operating system, e.g., CentOS Linux, Ubuntu or another Linux distribution, using the
dmidecode command.
E.g., you can use dmidecode --type bios to obtain such
information:[root@localhost ~]# dmidecode --type bios
# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.3 present.
Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 0601
Release Date: 11/30/2006
Address: 0xF0000
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 512 kB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
ESCD support is available
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
BIOS ROM is socketed
EDD is supported
5.25"/1.2 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 kB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
USB legacy is supported
AGP is supported
LS-120 boot is supported
ATAPI Zip drive boot is supported
BIOS boot specification is supported
Targeted content distribution is supported
BIOS Revision: 8.10
Handle 0x002D, DMI type 13, 22 bytes
BIOS Language Information
Language Description Format: Abbreviated
Installable Languages: 1
en|US|iso8859-1
Currently Installed Language: en|US|iso8859-1
[root@localhost ~]#Alternatively, you can use the --sring parameter and
specify a particular option, such as BIOS vendor, as shown below:
[root@localhost ~]# dmidecode --string bios-vendor American Megatrends Inc. [root@localhost ~]# dmidecode --string bios-version 0601 [root@localhost ~]# dmidecode --string bios-release-date 11/30/2006
Note: you need to run the commands as root. On a Ubuntu system, you can run
the commands by prefixing the commands with sudo, e.g.,
sudo dmidecode --type bios or sudo dmidecode
--string bios-version, and provide your password when prompted.
Otherwise you will get a "Permission denied" message.
Dmidecode is known to work on the following systems:
- Linux i386, x86-64, ia64
- FreeBSD i386, amd64
- NetBSD i386, amd64
- OpenBSD i386, amd64
- BeOS i386
- Cygwin i386
- Solaris x86
- Haiku i586
If it isn't available on your system, you can download the source code at dmidecode.
