How to Check Graphics Card Details and Driver Info in Ubuntu Terminal

Whether you are configuring machine learning workloads, installing modern Linux games via Steam, or troubleshooting screen flickering and dual-monitor multi-display setups, knowing exactly which graphics processing unit (GPU) is detected by your system is crucial. On Ubuntu workstations and headless compute nodes, several built-in and command-line utilities allow you to verify hardware vendors, PCIe link speeds, active kernel driver modules, and hardware acceleration status without installing heavy graphical diagnostic apps.

Detecting the GPU Model via lspci

The lspci command queries the PCI bus to report all connected peripheral components, providing an immediate hardware identification:

1. Launch the terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T.
2. Filter PCI hardware listings specifically for video controllers:

   lspci | grep -i --color 'vga|3d|2d'

3. The terminal will return a descriptive hardware line identifying whether an Intel integrated GPU, AMD Radeon chip, or NVIDIA GeForce/Quadro card is installed:

   01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD104 [GeForce RTX 4070] (rev a1)

4. To identify the specific kernel driver currently handling the graphics card, run:

   lspci -k -s 01:00.0

Look for the line labelled Kernel driver in use. It will indicate whether the open-source driver (such as nouveau for NVIDIA or amdgpu for Radeon) or the proprietary binary driver is active.

Querying In-Depth Hardware Specifications with lshw

For detailed technical telemetry—including clock frequency, memory bus width, and firmware capabilities—use the list hardware utility:

sudo lshw -C display

The output presents a formatted hardware profile highlighting vendor IDs, physical bus address, clock rates, and display capabilities.

Verifying Recommended Drivers with ubuntu-drivers

To inspect available proprietary drivers and check if Ubuntu has recommended a newer certified driver for your GPU:

ubuntu-drivers devices

This command audits your specific hardware architecture against the Ubuntu driver repository, showing available driver packages alongside a recommended tag.

Checking OpenGL Hardware Acceleration with glxinfo

To ensure that desktop 3D acceleration is operating through your dedicated GPU rather than falling back to software CPU emulation (LLVMpipe):

1. Install the Mesa utility tools package if not already present:

   sudo apt install mesa-utils -y

2. Inspect direct rendering and OpenGL vendor strings:

   glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer|direct rendering"

3. Verify that direct rendering: Yes is displayed and that OpenGL renderer points to your physical graphics card.