xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/man4.i386/pnpbios.4 (revision 274254cdae52594c1aa480a736aef78313d15c9c)
1.\" $NetBSD: pnpbios.4,v 1.12 2008/04/30 13:10:56 martin Exp $
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30.Dd September 27, 2002
31.Dt PNPBIOS 4 i386
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm pnpbios
35.Nd introduction to PnP BIOS support
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.Cd "pnpbios0 at mainbus?"
38.Cd "XX*      at pnpbios0 index ?"
39.Pp
40.Cd options PNPBIOSVERBOSE
41.Cd options PNPBIOSDEBUG
42.Sh INTRODUCTION
43.Nm
44provides support for finding and attaching devices by
45extracting information from the PnP BIOS of a machine.
46.Sh SUPPORTED DEVICES
47.Nx
48includes the following
49.Nm
50drivers, sorted by driver name:
51.Pp
52.Bl -tag -width speaker -offset indent -compact
53.It com
54serial communications interface
55.It ess
56ESS Technology AudioDrive family audio device driver
57.It fdc
58floppy controller
59.It joy
60game controller
61.It lpt
62parallel port driver
63.It npx
64math coprocessor
65.It pciide
66PCI IDE controllers driver
67.It pckbc
68PC keyboard/mouse controller
69.It sb
70SoundBlaster family audio device driver
71.It wss
72Windows Sound System hardware driver
73.It ym
74Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound driver
75.El
76.Sh SEE ALSO
77.Xr com 4 ,
78.Xr ess 4 ,
79.Xr fdc 4 ,
80.Xr intro 4 ,
81.Xr isa 4 ,
82.Xr joy 4 ,
83.Xr lpt 4 ,
84.Xr npx 4 ,
85.Xr pci 4 ,
86.Xr pciide 4 ,
87.Xr pckbc 4 ,
88.Xr sb 4 ,
89.Xr wss 4 ,
90.Xr ym 4
91.Sh HISTORY
92The
93.Nm
94driver
95appeared in
96.Nx 1.5 .
97.Sh BUGS
98The
99.Nm
100bus provides a different way to attach devices than the real buses
101(e.g.,
102.Xr isa 4 ) .
103The reason to use
104.Nm
105instead of the real bus is that some machines have weird routings
106of, e.g., interrupts.  The exact information about these things can
107be found in the BIOS, which is why the
108.Nm
109bus has a better chance of succeeding with getting it right.
110.Pp
111Many older BIOS implementations do not support PnP,
112and some newer ones do not follow the standards.
113