Python, In linux obtain VGA specifications via lspci or HAL?

Question

I'm currently using dmidecode for everything else but I've yet to find good information on retrieving specifications for a video card on Linux (Mainly Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, RedHat)

What i was thinking of using was: lspci -v or HAL

What would be the most efficient way to parse lspci data, obtaining just VGA portion to then output json.

def get_graphic_card_properties():
        import dbus
        bus = dbus.SystemBus()
        hal_manager_object = bus.get_object('org.freedesktop.Hal', '/org/freedesktop/Hal/Manager')
        hal_manager_interface = dbus.Interface(hal_manager_object, 'org.freedesktop.Hal.Manager')
        method = hal_manager_object.get_dbus_method('GetAllDevices', 'org.freedesktop.Hal.Manager')
        print "\n".join(list(iter(method())))

That's the only code I was able to come across as an example, doesn't appear to work for me in Fedora 17 64bit, I think because there's no /orc/freedesktop/Hal.Manager.

Any ideas on this?

Answer 1

here is the command sample of lspci here. so basically you would call subprocess to access the command from python.

import subprocess

def find_vga():
    vga = subprocess.Popen("lspci -v -s `lspci | awk '/VGA/{print $1}'`", shell=True)
    return vga

print(find_vga())

OR

def find_vga():
    vga = subprocess.check_output("lspci -v -s `lspci | awk '/VGA/{print $1}'`", shell=True, executable='/bin/bash')
    return vga

print(find_vga())