(Thanks lluvia)

In order to know the details of your hardware you can carry out the following actions:

See below your notebook or netbook

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    lspci

or

    lspci > FILENAME          # output to a file

You will obtain the list of your PCI devices, similar to the one written below

    00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
    03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN (rev 02)
    05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400M GS] (rev a1)

Note: The name of each device is written after the colon (see the text in bold in the above list)

If the device is an USB device (example: an external USB wifi card)

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    lsusb -v

or

    lsusb -v > FILENAME          # output to a file

You will obtain the list of your USB devices, similar to the one written below

    Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0846:4260 NetGear, Inc. WG111v3 54 Mbps Wireless [realtek RTL8187B]
    Device Descriptor:
    	bLength						18
    	bDescriptorType				1
    	bcdUSB						2.00
    	bDeviceClass				0 (Defined at Interface level)
    	bDeviceSubClass				0
    	bDeviceProtocol				0
    	bMaxPacketSize0				64
    	idVendor					0x0846 NetGear, Inc.
    	idProduct					0x4260 WG111v3 54 Mbps Wireless [realtek RTL8187B]
    	bcdDevice					2.00
    	iManufacturer				1
    	iProduct					2
    	iSerial						3
    	...
    	...

    Bus 002 Device 003: ID 08ff:2580 AuthenTec, Inc. AES2501 Fingerprint Sensor
    Device Descriptor:
    	bLength						18
    	bDescriptorType				1
    	bcdUSB						1.10
    	bDeviceClass				255 Vendor Specific Class
    	bDeviceSubClass			 	255 Vendor Specific Subclass
    	bDeviceProtocol			 	255 Vendor Specific Protocol
    	bMaxPacketSize0				8
    	idVendor					0x08ff AuthenTec, Inc.
    	idProduct					0x2580 AES2501 Fingerprint Sensor
    	bcdDevice					6.23
    	iManufacturer				0
    	iProduct					1 Fingerprint Sensor
    	iSerial						0
    	bNumConfigurations			1
    	...
    	...

Note: The name of each device is written at the row starting with "idProduct" (see the text in bold in the above list)

Another program that can be handy to retrieve hardware information, specially USB drivers used by the system is hwinfo. Note that this doesn't come with a standard GNU/Linux distribution, and you'll have to install it with your package management system or from source code.

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    uname -r

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    sudo lspci

Then look for the row containing the string VGA or Display controller. You can also try one of the following commands:

    lspci | grep "Display controller"

or

    lspci | grep "VGA"

(Thanks Michał Masłowski and Julius22)

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    sudo lspci -nnk

You should obtain a list of hardware similar to the one written below

    03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 02)
    	Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
    	Kernel modules: ssb
    05:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation G86 [GeForce 8400M GS] [10de:0427] (rev a1)
    	Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidiafb

The strings in bold and placed inside the square brackets (in the above list) are the code you are looking for. The first set of digits (before the colon) are the VendorID, the second set of digits are the ProductID. In the above example: the VendorID:ProductID code of the wifi card (note the strings "Network controller" and "WLAN") is 14e4:4311 while the VendorID:ProductID code of the video card (note the string "VGA") is 10de:0427

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    sudo lsusb

You should obtain a list of hardware similar to the one written below

    Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0846:4260 NetGear, Inc. WG111v3 54 Mbps Wireless [realtek RTL8187B]
    Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
    Bus 002 Device 003: ID 08ff:2580 AuthenTec, Inc. AES2501 Fingerprint Sensor

The strings in bold (in the above list) are the code you are looking for. The first set of digits (before the colon) are the VendorID, the second set of digits are the ProductID. In the above example: the VendorID:ProductID code of the external USB wifi card (note the strings "Wireless") is 0846:4260

The easiest way to know the driver used by a USB device is with hwinfo

Open a terminal and type the following command:

hwinfo --usb

You should obtain a list of hardware similar to the one written below

19: USB 00.0: 0000 Unclassified device
  [Created at usb.122]
  Unique ID: FKGF.WYbsxjVsRmA
  Parent ID: pBe4.v+N+B0xY+P6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0
  SysFS BusID: 2-1:1.0
  Hardware Class: unknown
  Model: "Microdia Triplex i-mini PC Camera"
  Hotplug: USB
  Vendor: usb 0x0c45 "Microdia"
  Device: usb 0x6029 "Triplex i-mini PC Camera"
  Revision: "1.01"
  Driver: "sonixb"
  Driver Modules: "gspca_sonixb"
  Speed: 12 Mbps
  Module Alias: "usb:v0C45p6029d0101dc00dsc00dp00icFFiscFFipFF"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: gspca_sonixb is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe gspca_sonixb"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #9 (Hub)

The string in bold (in the above list) is the driver's device that is using in order to work on your system.

Install rss-glx by means of the package manager of your distribution or compiling it from source and try some screensavers (for example Skyrocket or Solarwinds). Check if you can play the screensaver (and/or if you can play it smoothly)

Try to enable compiz

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    sudo lspci

Then look for the row containing the string Wireless or Network controller. You can also try one of the following commands:

    lspci | grep "Wireless" 

or

    lspci | grep "Network" 

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    dpkg-query -W -f '${Version}\n' cups

Open a terminal and type the following command:

    cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep "lm"

If you get a message like this:

 flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts
    acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64
    monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm

then you machine is x86-64/amd64 capable and you could choose a x86-64/amd64 distro to run on it.

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