little terminal experience - checking display, but what am i doing wrong

[mittens79]

So I am trying to find out the display manufacturer of my new iMac. At the username prompt, I copied and pasted the command that is floating around (without quotes): "ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6" but it did not produce any information. Instead it just brought up another username command line. I have very little experience working with terminal and haven't been able to find any step by step guides. What am I doing wrong here? Thanks.

 

[Detrius]

Nah. Worked on my mini, but it only showed me one of my two displays. Maybe the info isn't all there in the format your source expected. I tweaked it to this:

ioreg -lw0 | grep Display | sed "/[^<]*</s///" | xxd -p -r | strings -6

...and it showed both of the monitors connected to my mini. Granted, it isn't showing me any information I couldn't have gotten more easily from the System Profiler, but it worked.

 

[Detrius]

Just tried it on an '09 iMac. All it says is "Color LCD". This one is an LG. I know because I have the machine open.

Is there a reason you need to know the manufacturer?

 

[mittens79]

Just tried it on an '09 iMac. All it says is "Color LCD". This one is an LG. I know because I have the machine open.

Is there a reason you need to know the manufacturer?

Thanks for your response! So do I just copy and paste the command you posted into the username command prompt and then hit enter? Because I tried that and it just created a new username prompt line. I feel like I'm missing some kind of essential step.

Well, at first I was curious to find out the display manufacturer after reading all the discussions about Samsung vs. LG. Mine looks lovely (no yellow) except a strange black speck that was visible immediately during initial set-up. Now I'm just frustrated that I can't seem to do one measly thing in Terminal!!

Thanks!