Rick, To avoid distribution-specific tools and to get consistent info, stick with the standard: dmesg, lspci. 'dmesg' shortly after boot is money in the bank. '/sbin/lspci' is the next thing to do. (The /sbin/ is needed so that it runs by a regular user, i.e. when the /sbin directory is not in your path.) And since I am at it, 'lsusb' you should also keep in mind. If you need to load dynamic kernel modules to support hardware, then keep in mind '/sbin/lsmod'