EDID CLI tools

Displays share their capabilities with other devices with a message called an EDID. The EDID contains the display's manufacturer name, product name, and other metadata.

You can use some helpful CLI tools to dump and decode the current connected display's EDID on Linux-based systems. However, these tools don't allow you to edit the EDID. If you need to edit an EDID, you can use AW EDID Editor. You can install AW EDID Editor on Linux-based systems using Wine.

Install the packages

Install the read-edid and edid-decode packages using apt:

sudo apt install read-edid edid-decode -y

Usage examples

Dumping the current display's EDID

Grab the EDID and hex dump it to stdout:

sudo get-edid --quiet | hexdump -e '16/1 "%02x" "\n"'

Grab the EDID and dump it as a binary file:

sudo get-edid --quiet > current-edid.bin

Decoding an EDID

Grab the EDID and decode the information into human-readable text:

sudo get-edid --quiet | edid-decode

Decode an EDID from a binary file:

decode-edid < edid.bin