PNPBIOS(4) | Kernel Interfaces Manual (i386) | PNPBIOS(4)

# NAME

pnpbios — introduction to PnP BIOS support

# SYNOPSIS

pnpbios0 at mainbus?
XX* at pnpbios0 index ?

options PNPBIOSVERBOSE
options PNPBIOSDEBUG

# INTRODUCTION

pnpbios provides support for finding and attaching devices by extracting information from the PnP BIOS of a machine.

# SUPPORTED DEVICES

NetBSD includes the following pnpbios drivers, sorted by driver name:

com
  serial communications interface
ess
  ESS Technology AudioDrive family audio device driver
fdc
  floppy controller
joy
  game controller
lpt
  parallel port driver
npx
  math coprocessor
pciide
  PCI IDE controllers driver
pckbc
  PC keyboard/mouse controller
sb
  SoundBlaster family audio device driver
wss
  Windows Sound System hardware driver
ym
  Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound driver

# SEE ALSO

com(4), ess(4), fdc(4), intro(4), isa(4), joy(4), lpt(4), npx(4), pci(4), pciide(4), pckbc(4), sb(4), wss(4), ym(4)

# HISTORY

The pnpbios driver appeared in NetBSD 1.5.

# BUGS

The pnpbios bus provides a different way to attach devices than the real buses (e.g., isa(4)). The reason to use pnpbios instead of the real bus is that some machines have weird routings of, e.g., interrupts. The exact information about these things can be found in the BIOS, which is why the pnpbios bus has a better chance of succeeding with getting it right.

Many older BIOS implementations do not support PnP, and some newer ones do not follow the standards.

September 27, 2002 | NetBSD 6.0