Ubuntu Linux: Find Out What Kind Of Video Card Is Installed

How do I find out what kind of video card I have installed on my Ubuntu Linux desktop or laptop system?

There are a couple ways of doing this. The easiest way is to use the command line utility called lspci. It will display information about all PCI buses in the system and all devices connected to them.

lspci command

Open a terminal and type the following command
$ lspci
$ lspci -v
$ lspci -v | grep -i vga
$ lspci -v | less
Sample outputs:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DMI (rev 11)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 11)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor System Management Registers (rev 11)
00:08.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor Semaphore and Scratchpad Registers (rev 11)
00:08.2 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor System Control and Status Registers (rev 11)
00:08.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor Miscellaneous Registers (rev 11)
00:10.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link (rev 11)
00:10.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Routing and Protocol Registers (rev 11)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev 05)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 05)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 05)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev 05)
00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev 05)
00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 8 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G92 [Quadro FX 2800M] (rev a2)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
03:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
03:01.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
03:01.3 SD Host controller: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5761e Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300

You need to find out the VGA keyword in about output listing.

/var/log/Xorg.0.log

You can find more information about your monitor and graphics card by looking into /var/log/Xorg.0.log file itself:
$ less /var/log/Xorg.0.log
$ grep -i nvidia /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Sample outputs:

(--) PCI:*(0:1:0:0) 10de:061d:1028:02ef nVidia Corporation G92 [Quadro FX 2800M] rev 162, Mem @ 0xf5000000/16777216, 0xe0000000/268435456, 0xf2000000/33554432, I/O @ 0x0000df00/128, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
(II) Module glx: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
(II) NVIDIA GLX Module  260.19.12  Fri Oct  8 13:49:01 PDT 2010
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver  260.19.12  Fri Oct  8 13:24:43 PDT 2010
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888
(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "TwinView" "1"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "MetaModes" "DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
(**) NVIDIA(0): Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
(**) Nov 08 19:48:21 NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
(II) Nov 08 19:48:21 NVIDIA(0): Support for GLX with the Damage and Composite X extensions is
(II) Nov 08 19:48:21 NVIDIA(0):     enabled.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU Quadro FX 2800M (G92GL) at PCI:1:0:0 (GPU-0)
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Memory: 1048576 kBytes
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 62.92.a2.00.09
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on Quadro FX 2800M at PCI:1:0:0
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0):     Seiko/Epson (DFP-0)
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0):     DELL 2707WFP (DFP-1)
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Seiko/Epson (DFP-0): 330.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Seiko/Epson (DFP-0): Internal Dual Link LVDS
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): DELL 2707WFP (DFP-1): 165.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): DELL 2707WFP (DFP-1): External Single Link TMDS
(**) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): TwinView enabled
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Display Devices found referenced in MetaMode: DFP-0, DFP-1
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Devices: DFP-0, DFP-1
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Validated modes:
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0):
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0):     "DFP-0:nvidia-auto-select+0+0,DFP-1:nvidia-auto-select+0+0"
(II) Nov 08 19:48:23 NVIDIA(0): Virtual screen size determined to be 1920 x 1200
(--) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (131, 132); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config
(--) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0):     option
(WW) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): UBB is incompatible with the Composite extension.  Disabling
(WW) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0):     UBB.
(==) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): Enabling 32-bit ARGB GLX visuals.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA: Using 768.00 MB of virtual memory for indirect memory access.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): Initialized GPU GART.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): ACPI display change hotkey events enabled: the X server is new
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0):     enough to receive ACPI hotkey events.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): ACPI brightness change hotkey events enabled.
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0): Setting mode
(II) Nov 08 19:48:24 NVIDIA(0):     "DFP-0:nvidia-auto-select+0+0,DFP-1:nvidia-auto-select+0+0"
(II) Nov 08 19:48:25 NVIDIA(0): Initialized OpenGL Acceleration
(==) NVIDIA(0): Disabling shared memory pixmaps
(II) Nov 08 19:48:25 NVIDIA(0): Initialized X Rendering Acceleration
(==) NVIDIA(0): Backing store disabled
(==) NVIDIA(0): Silken mouse enabled
(**) NVIDIA(0): DPMS enabled