When the Linux system boots, it will try to detect the hardware installed in the computer. It will then make a fake file system called procfs and will store important information about your system in it. You can get information about your system simply by browsing the directory /proc. The files in there will contain information such as the processor you have, the amount of memory and the file systems the kernel currently supports. A usefull application exists to browse the /proc file system. It is called Xproc and is available from http://devplanet.fastethernet.net/files.html
