biosdecode

biosdecode

-h, --help
    Displays a brief help message and exits.

-V, --version
    Displays the version information and exits.

The biosdecode command is a utility designed to extract and display system management BIOS (SMBIOS) or Desktop Management Interface (DMI) information directly from the system's firmware.

This data includes crucial hardware details such as the BIOS vendor, version, and date, as well as information about the system's manufacturer, product name, serial number, UUID, and various board, chassis, and memory attributes.

While its functionality is largely superseded by the more comprehensive dmidecode utility on modern Linux systems, biosdecode served as an earlier or simpler tool focused specifically on retrieving this fundamental hardware inventory. It is often used for system auditing, troubleshooting hardware compatibility, and gathering specific machine identification details that are encoded within the BIOS/UEFI firmware.

The biosdecode utility is often considered deprecated or replaced by dmidecode on modern Linux distributions. Its availability and specific functionality may vary significantly across systems. It typically requires root privileges to access the system's memory (e.g., /dev/mem) where the DMI/SMBIOS tables reside. The reliability of the output depends heavily on the accuracy and completeness of the system's BIOS/UEFI firmware.

SMBIOS (System Management BIOS) is a standard specification for reporting system information via the BIOS firmware. DMI (Desktop Management Interface) was an older standard, and SMBIOS essentially took over its role for representing hardware information. The terms are often used interchangeably, but biosdecode (and dmidecode) specifically parse the SMBIOS structures present in the firmware, which effectively serves the purpose of DMI.

Accessing the raw memory where SMBIOS data is stored (typically /dev/mem) requires superuser privileges for security reasons. Therefore, biosdecode (and similarly dmidecode) must generally be run as the root user or via sudo to function correctly and retrieve system information.

The biosdecode command has roots as an early tool for extracting DMI/SMBIOS data from system firmware. It often ran in parallel with, or predated, the development of the more robust and versatile dmidecode utility. Over time, dmidecode evolved to become the de facto standard for this purpose, offering more detailed parsing and a wider range of options, while biosdecode's standalone usage diminished significantly. In many contemporary Linux environments, biosdecode might be a symbolic link to dmidecode, or not present at all, as its specific functionality has been absorbed by the more comprehensive tool.

dmidecode(8), lshw(1), hwinfo(8)