intro
—
introduction to i386 special files and hardware support
This section describes the special files, related driver functions, and
networking support available in the system. In this part of the manual, the
SYNOPSIS section of each configurable device gives a sample specification for
use in constructing a system description for the
config(1) program. The
DIAGNOSTICS section lists messages which may appear on the console and/or in
the system error log /var/log/messages due to errors
in device operation; see
syslogd(8) for more
information.
This section contains both devices which may be configured into
the system and network related information. The networking support is
introduced in
netintro(4).
This section describes the hardware supported on the i386 (PC-clone) platform.
Software support for these devices comes in two forms. A hardware device may
be supported with a character or block device driver, or it
may be used within the networking subsystem and have a network
interface driver. Block and character devices are accessed through files
in the file system of a special type; see
mknod(8). Network interfaces
are indirectly accessed through the interprocess communication facilities
provided by the system; see
socket(2).
A hardware device is identified to the system at configuration
time and the appropriate device or network interface driver is then compiled
into the system. When the resultant system is booted, the autoconfiguration
facilities in the system probe for the device and, if found, enable the
software support for it. If a device does not respond at autoconfiguration
time it is not accessible at any time afterwards. To enable a device which
did not autoconfigure, the system must be rebooted.
The autoconfiguration system is described in
x86/autoconf(4). A
list of the supported devices is given below.
The devices listed below are supported in this incarnation of the system.
Devices are indicated by their functional interface. Not all supported devices
are listed.
Standard builtin devices:
- com(4)
- NS8250-, NS16450-, and NS16550-based asynchronous serial communications
device interface
- x86/lpt(4)
- Parallel port device interface
- x86/fdc(4)
- Standard NEC 765 floppy disk controller.
- mca(4)
- MCA I/O bus.
- x86/mem(4)
- Main memory interface
- pci(4)
- PCI I/O bus.
- eisa(4)
- EISA I/O bus, either as main bus or via PCI-EISA bridge.
- isa(4)
- ISA bus and ISA devices, either as main bus or via PCI-ISA bridge.
- isa(4)
- isa I/O bus.
- isapnp(4)
- ``bus'' for ISA devices with PnP support.
- speaker(4)
- console speaker device interface
PCMCIA devices are supported through the
pcmcia(4) bus and
associated device drivers.
Cardbus devices are supported through the
cardbus(4) bus and
associated device drivers.
USB devices are supported through the
usb(4) bus and associated
device drivers.
Console devices using ISA, EISA, or PCI video adaptors and
standard AT or PS/2 keyboards are supported by the machine independent
wscons(4) console
driver.
The i386 intro
appeared in NetBSD
1.0.