.TH BIOSDECODE 8 "February 2007" "dmidecode"

.SH NAME

biosdecode \- \s-1BIOS\s0 information decoder

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B biosdecode

.RB [ OPTIONS ]

.SH DESCRIPTION

.B biosdecode

parses the \s-1BIOS\s0 memory and prints information about all structures (or

entry points) it knows of. Currently known entry point types are:

.IP \(bu "\w'\(bu'u+1n"

\s-1SMBIOS\s0 (System Management \s-1BIOS\s0)

.br

Use

.B dmidecode

for a more detailed output.

.IP \(bu

\s-1DMI\s0 (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of \s-1SMBIOS\s0)

.br

Use

.B dmidecode

for a more detailed output.

.IP \(bu

\s-1SYSID\s0

.IP \(bu

\s-1PNP\s0 (Plug and Play)

.IP \(bu

\s-1ACPI\s0 (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

.IP \(bu

\s-1BIOS32\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Service Directory)

.IP \(bu

\s-1PIR\s0 (\s-1PCI\s0 \s-1IRQ\s0 Routing)

.IP \(bu

\s-132OS\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Extension, Compaq-specific)

.br

See

.B ownership

for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.

.IP \(bu

\s-1SNY\s0 (Sony-specific, not decoded)

.IP \(bu

\s-1VPD\s0 (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)

.br

Use

.B vpddecode

for a more detailed output.

.IP \(bu

\s-1FJKEYINF\s0 (Application Panel, Fujitsu-specific)

.PP

.B biosdecode

started its life as a part of

.B dmidecode

but as more entry point types were added, it was moved to a different

program.

.SH OPTIONS

.TP

.BR "-d" ", " "--dev-mem FILE"

Read memory from device \fBFILE\fR (default: \fB/dev/mem\fR)

.TP

.BR "  " "  " "--pir full"

Decode the details of the PCI IRQ routing table

.TP

.BR "-h" ", " "--help"

Display usage information and exit

.TP

.BR "-V" ", " "--version"

Display the version and exit

.SH FILES

.I /dev/mem

.SH BUGS

Most of the time,

.B biosdecode

prints too much information (you don't really care about addresses)

or not enough (because it doesn't follow pointers and has no lookup

tables).

.SH AUTHORS

Alan Cox, Jean Delvare

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.BR dmidecode (8),

.BR mem (4),

.BR ownership (8),

.BR vpddecode (8)