0

What's the command to list the all I/O ports connected to system?

Also, how do I get the status of all individual ports?

For example: printer

How do I determine whether a printer is ready to print or if there are any jobs are waiting?

For example: monitor

How do I determine whether the monitor(s) is/are active or not?

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    Pretty sure you do not actually mean port here ("port" refers to software ip sockets), but rather, "connected hardware". If so it's a heterogeneous realm, but there are various GUI tools that try to pull everything together in some sense -- eg, your DE may have a "hardware settings" somewhere that will give you information like this. Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 14:17
  • 1
    @goldilocks What about USB port or HDMI port? That seems to be the use of the term port here. Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 15:51
  • Fair enough, but "port" alone is ambiguous, because devices can be accessed over a network, in which case (network) ports are involved. Hence "Pretty sure you actually mean...". If you use ambiguous terms, you ask an ambiguous question, and someone who has a good answer to what you really mean may skip it, because what they see is "input/output ports" and not "hardware ports". Commented Mar 18, 2013 at 16:20

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

As goldilocks' comment says, this is extremely heterogeneous. A printer isn't a "port" in the sense you mean, there is a whole software infrastructure handling the queues of print jobs (CUPS here, there are other alternatives). The printer might be off/disconnected, but jobs waiting. What does a USB port "in use" mean? An unmounted pendrive is plugged in? What if a USB hub is connected, and nothing is connected to it? What is a monitor "in use"? A connected user, a screensaver running, a GDM greeter?

For some of the devices it might not be possible to determine if something is connected without some activity.

And that leaves out Bluetooth and other wireless stuff.

It makes much more sense to ask e.g. if sound output is available, without regard if it is on-board, via USB, by Bluetooth, or maybe even over WiFi to some media center. I.e., ask if some functionality is available, not ask for (perhaps ephemeral) devices.

Improve this answer
0

There isn't a single method because those hardware devices are extremely diverse. For example, printers can be connected directly to a machine (typically over USB, or for older printers a parallel or serial port) or accessed via a network interface (wired or wireless, possibly going via an intermediate server). So there are tools to manage printers, and tools to manage monitors, and tools to manage storage media, and so on.

lshw is the closest thing to an all-in-one hardware enumerator. It reports available hardware that's directly connected to the machine. It doesn't probe the network, that's another kettle of fish.

You can find a lot of information about hardware in /sys. It's exposed in a form that's easily readable by programs, it's not primarily designed to make sense to humans.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.