xref: /netbsd/share/man/man4/man4.i386/pnpbios.4 (revision c4a72b64)
1.\" $NetBSD: pnpbios.4,v 1.11 2002/09/27 22:31:45 wiz Exp $
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37.Dd September 27, 2002
38.Dt PNPBIOS 4 i386
39.Os
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm pnpbios
42.Nd introduction to PnP BIOS support
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Cd "pnpbios0 at mainbus?"
45.Cd "XX*      at pnpbios0 index ?"
46.Pp
47.Cd options PNPBIOSVERBOSE
48.Cd options PNPBIOSDEBUG
49.Sh INTRODUCTION
50.Nm
51provides support for finding and attaching devices by
52extracting information from the PnP BIOS of a machine.
53.Sh SUPPORTED DEVICES
54.Nx
55includes the following
56.Nm
57drivers, sorted by driver name:
58.Pp
59.Bl -tag -width speaker -offset indent -compact
60.It com
61serial communications interface
62.It ess
63ESS Technology AudioDrive family audio device driver
64.It fdc
65floppy controller
66.It joy
67game controller
68.It lpt
69parallel port driver
70.It npx
71math coprocessor
72.It pciide
73PCI IDE controllers driver
74.It pckbc
75PC keyboard/mouse controller
76.It sb
77SoundBlaster family audio device driver
78.It wss
79Windows Sound System hardware driver
80.It ym
81Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound driver
82.El
83.Sh SEE ALSO
84.Xr com 4 ,
85.Xr ess 4 ,
86.Xr fdc 4 ,
87.Xr intro 4 ,
88.Xr isa 4 ,
89.Xr joy 4 ,
90.Xr lpt 4 ,
91.Xr npx 4 ,
92.Xr pci 4 ,
93.Xr pciide 4 ,
94.Xr pckbc 4 ,
95.Xr sb 4 ,
96.Xr wss 4 ,
97.Xr ym 4
98.Sh HISTORY
99The
100.Nm
101driver
102appeared in
103.Nx 1.5 .
104.Sh BUGS
105The
106.Nm
107bus provides a different way to attach devices than the real buses
108(e.g.,
109.Xr isa 4 ) .
110The reason to use
111.Nm
112instead of the real bus is that some machines have weird routings
113of, e.g., interrupts.  The exact information about these things can
114be found in the BIOS, which is why the
115.Nm
116bus has a better chance of succeeding with getting it right.
117.Pp
118Many older BIOS implementations do not support PnP,
119and some newer ones do not follow the standards.
120