sysdata(1)

📦 version 4.6.1, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

🌸 SYSDATA(1) — the manual page, but make it a vibe 🌸

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about sysdata, a lil' program from the General Commands Manual section of your life. it's giving "tiny tool, big energy." 💅

✨ NAME ✨

sysdata — find basic hardware system data 🖥️💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

sysdata

that's it. that's the whole thing. no flags, no drama. 🫶

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea ☕ — once the atlc package gets built, a lil' benchmark runs as part of the testing procedure. this benchmark is trying to get some info about the hardware, and it does, but it takes forever. 💀

sysdata shows you the exact same hardware information that the benchmark will display — same data, same vibe — but it runs in a fraction of a second. meanwhile the benchmark can take anywhere from 19 s (on a quad 1.4 GHz Itainium 2 machine) all the way up to 14,906 s (on a very old 33.3 MHz Cray Y-MP 😭). bestie that's over four hours. no cap. not the move.

and just so we're clear: there are no options or arguments to sysdata. zero. none. it's a no-notes, no-options, main-character-only kind of program. 👑

here's the lowkey sad part though 😔 — when the hardware and the software are both developed by the same company (think Solaris on Suns, AIX on IBM RS/6000, IRIX on SGI, ... etc etc), the info it gathers is generally way more informative. on the free systems (Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD) it's usually impossible to get much hardware information at all. so if you're on a free UNIX, temper your expectations, bestie. it's not sysdata's fault, it's just the vibe of the platform. 🌈

💖 EXAMPLES 💖

here are some examples of the use of sysdata on a number of systems. the large number of examples is for my own use as much as anything, so I can keep track of the development of sysdata and see easily where it needs extending. 🔍✨

examples are presented for:

  1. Sun Ultra 80 running Solaris 9
  2. HP C3000 running HP-UX 11
  3. SGI Octane running IRIX 6.5.16
  4. IBM RS/6000 running AIX 5.2
  5. Dec Alpha 600a Personal Workstation running Tru64 5.1B
  6. Cray Y-MP running UNICOS 9
  7. Sun SPARCstation 20 running NetBSD 1.6
  8. Sun SPARCstation 20 running OpenBSD 3.2
  9. Sun SPARCstation 20 running Debian Linux
  10. Sun SPARCstation 20 running Solaris 2.5
  11. Generic PC with 350 MHz Pentium II running Redhat Linux 7.2

here's the output from sysdata on these 11 systems. 👇

⭐ e.g. 1 (Sun Ultra 80 running Solaris 9)

Hardware provider:    Sun_Microsystems
Hardware platform:    SUNW,Ultra-80
Machine:              sun4u
Sysname:              SunOS
Release:              5.9
Version:              Generic_112233-06
Nodename:             sparrow
#CPUs supported:      4
#CPUs online:         4
CPU type:             sparcv9
FPU type:             sparcv9
Speed:                450 MHz
RAM:                  4096 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kB
L1 instruction cache: unknown kB
L2 cache:             unknown kB

⭐ e.g. 2 (HP 9000 series Visualize C3000)

here's an example on a HP 9000 series Visualize C3000 workstation, fitted with one 400 MHz PA-RISC 8500 CPU and 1.5 Gb of RAM 💖

Hardware provider:    HP
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              9000/785
Sysname:              HP-UX
Release:              B.11.00
Version:              A
Nodename:             robin
#CPUs supported:      1
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:             532
FPU type:             1048577
Speed:                400.0 MHz
RAM:                  1536 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g. 3 (SGI Octane R1000)

here's another example, this time on an SGI Octane R10000 with 2 x 195 MHz processors. 👀 note the CPU and FPU types reported at not the R10000 and R10010 that are reported by SGI's hinv. sysdata is not meant to replace other more sophisticated ways of obtaining system information (such as hinv on IRIX), but its data is useful to record for benchmarking purposes. 💯

Hardware provider:    SGI
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              IP30
Sysname:              IRIX64
Release:              6.5
Version:              04101931
Nodename:             owl
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         2
CPU type:             2343
FPU type:             2304
Speed:                195 MHz
RAM:                  1024 Mb
L1 data cache         32 kB
L1 instruction cache: 32 kB
L2 cache:             1024 kB

⭐ e.g. 4 (IBM RS/6000 F50)

here's an example using an IBM RS/6000 F50 with 4 x 332 MHz CPUs and 1 GB of RAM. 🧚

Hardware provider:    IBM
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              000245984C00
Sysname:              AIX
Release:              2
Version:              5
Nodename:             starling
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         4
CPU type:             unknown
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                unknown MHz
RAM:                  1024 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kB
L1 instruction cache: unknown kB
L2 cache:             unknown kB

⭐ e.g. 5 (Dec Alpha 600a Personal Workstation)

and here's an example from a single 599 MHz processor Dec Alpha 600a Personal Workstation running Tru64 5.1B 🌸

Hardware provider:    unknown
Hardware platform:    Digital_Personal_WorkStation_600au
Machine:              alpha
Sysname:              OSF1
Release:              V5.1
Version:              2650
Nodename:             dobermann.localhost.ntlworld.co
#CPUs supported:      1
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:             EV5.6_(21164A)
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                599 MHz
RAM:                  1024 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g 6 (Cray Y-MP running UNICOS)

here's some data collected on a very old Cray Y-MP, which was introduced in 1991. 👵✨ (yes the label says e.g 6, no period — that's just how it is, bestie, we don't edit the artifacts 🏛️)

Hardware provider:    Cray
Hardware platform:    Y-MP
Machine:              CRAY_Y-MP
Sysname:              sn5176
Release:              9.0.2.2
Version:              sin.0
Nodename:             sn5176
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         4
CPU type:             unknown
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                33.3 MHz
RAM:                  unknown Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

that is all the examples of commercial hardware running the operating systems made by the manufacturers of the hardware. 🏢

the following are free UNIX versions. in these cases the data gathered is never as complete. in particular the amoumt of memory reported if often less than the real amount due to memory taken by the operating system (kernel etc). the number of processors the system can support is never available. 😭

⭐ e.g. 7 (Sun SPARCstation 20 running NetBSD 1.6)

here's the first such non-commercial UNIX, from a single processor Sun SPARCstation 20 running NetBSD 1.6. 🦋

Hardware provider:    unknown
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              sparc
Sysname:              NetBSD
Release:              1.6
Version:              NetBSD_1.6_(GENERIC)_#0:_Mon_Sep__9_08:2sparc
Nodename:             blackbird
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:
rg:/autobuild/sparc/OBJ/autobuild/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/GENERIC
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                unknown MHz
RAM:                  255 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g. 8 (Sun SPARCstation 20 running OpenBSD 3.2)

here's data from a Sun SPARCstation 20 running OpenBSD 3.2. the machine has 320 Mb of RAM, not 318 Mb as indicated. 👀 the number of processors the system supports is reported as unknown, but should the system have been running Solaris 9, as in the example 1 (sparrow), then this information would have been determined — but it is not available under OpenBSD, or Solaris 2.5 for that matter. 💀

Hardware provider:    unknown
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              sparc
Sysname:              OpenBSD
Release:              3.2
Version:              GENERIC#36
Nodename:             crow.crow.localdomain
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:             unknown
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                unknown MHz
RAM:                  319 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g. 9 (Sun SPARCstation 20 running Debian Linux)

the next machine is a Sun SPARCstation 20 running Debian Linux. 🐧 the version of Debian is unknown, but clearly sysdata is unable to determine this. 🙈

Hardware provider:    unknown
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              sparc
Sysname:              Linux
Release:              2.2.20
Version:              #1_Fri_Nov_16_15:48:02_EST_2001
Nodename:             dove
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:             unknown
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                unknown MHz
RAM:                  281 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g. 10 (Sun SPARCstation 20 Solaris 2.5)

here's data from a Sun SPARCstation 20 running Solaris 2.5 (SunOS 5.5). the machine probably does have 352 Mb of RAM as reported. 🤔 the number of processors the system supports is reported as unknown, but should the system have been running Solaris 9, as in the example 1 (sparrow), then this information would have been determined — but it is not available under Solaris 2.5. 💅

Hardware provider:    Sun_Microsystems
Hardware platform:    SUNW,SPARCstation-20
Machine:              sun4m
Sysname:              SunOS
Release:              5.5
Version:              Generic
Nodename:             bluetit
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         2
CPU type:             sparc
FPU type:             sparc
Speed:                125 MHz
RAM:                  352 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

⭐ e.g. 11 (350 MHz Pentium II PC running Redhat Linux)

here's a standard PC, fitted with one processor 🖥️💜

Hardware provider:    unknown
Hardware platform:    unknown
Machine:              i686
Sysname:              Linux
Release:              2.4.18-5
Version:              #1_Mon_Jun_10_15:31:48_EDT_2002
Nodename:             tiger
#CPUs supported:      unknown
#CPUs online:         1
CPU type:             unknown
FPU type:             unknown
Speed:                unknown MHz
RAM:                  123 Mb
L1 data cache         unknown kb
L1 instruction cache: unknown kb
L2 cache:             unknown kb

🎀 FILES 🎀

sysdata does not read/write any files. it's a clean girl, she leaves no trace, she touches nothing. ✨🚫📁

(and bestie… there's more 👀 part 2 is coming, don't go anywhere 💖)

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

okay bestie, here's the whole friend group 💖 these are the other pages that live in the same neighborhood, so go say hi:

and if you wanna go deeper (you do, i know you do 🌸), here's where the lore lives:

ngl bestie, that's the whole page 🎀 you made it to the end, which is honestly giving academic weapon energy. go forth and compute 💜

this lil masterpiece was written by Dr. David Kirkby, and it's from atlc-4.5.0, dated 28th Sep 2003 — yes queen, 2003, and she's still serving 🫶

kisses, sysdata(1), bye bestie 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from