Hardware

GNOME currently has information about hardware spread across the system. There's not currently a single place to browse information about connected hardware. A high-level summary of hardware information (RAM, CPU, GPU, storage) is shown in Settings.

User stories

Brian's printer is not working. It doesn't show in the Settings page, but the USB cable is connected. He isn't familiar with the command line (lsusb) and is not sure if his computer has detected the printer. He doesn't find any tool that can help confirm the printer is connected but not working because it doesn't have drivers installed.

Previously Jane was prompted to install a new BIOS in Software. Her computer has started having graphical glitches and she wonders if the update caused it. She looks around GNOME and doesn't find any information on it. Rebooting to the BIOS is not something she is aware of.

Richard wants to install more RAM on his system. He doesn't know if how many slots he has and if can fit more in. He doesn't know how to open his device or access the BIOS to check this.

Sally googled for a problem with her graphics card. The website (askubuntu.com) suggested opening a terminal and running a series of commands to check what card she had. She's not familiar with the terminal and finds the commands hard to type and understand.

John has been called by his parents who are finding their computer is running slow. He wants to know information about their GPU and the installed drivers but can't describe how they can tell him over the phone.

Proposal

• Develop a new system app "Hardware" that shows information about connected hardware and firmware/drivers.
• This would not have any controls for the hardware, but would instead link to other tools (Disks, Settings, Simple Scan etc) for using the hardware.

Information that would be shown:

• CPU details
• GPU details and video driver / firmware information
• RAM details
• Bus information, i.e. which bus is this device on (PCI, USB) and be able to browse by bus (e.g. what USB devices do I have connected?)
• Sound cards
• Network interfaces
• Sensors and associated firmware
• Monitor information

Participants

Allan Day, Robert Ancell.

Relevant Art

Settings (GNOME)

Device Manager (Windows)