xref: /pciutils/README (revision ee7d8384)
1This package contains the PCI Utilities, version @VERSION@.
2
3Copyright (c) 1997--2004 Martin Mares <[email protected]>
4
5All files in this package can be freely distributed and used according
6to the terms of the GNU General Public License, either version 2 or
7(at your opinion) any newer version. See http://www.gnu.org/ for details.
8
9
10############################################################################
11
12Beware, this is a preliminary test version!  Anything might not work!
13
14Some more things I intend to merge before the 2.2.0 release:
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16   o  pcimodules and possibly other Linux module related stuff
17   o  New ID's from the pciids project
18   o  Avoid calling show_ext_caps() for non-ext devices.
19
20############################################################################
21
22
23
241. What's that?
25~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
26The PCI Utilities package contains a library for portable access to PCI bus
27configuration registers and several utilities based on this library.
28
29Currently, pciutils work on all versions of Linux and they also have somewhat
30experimental support for FreeBSD, NetBSD, AIX, GNU Hurd and Solaris/x86.
31It should be very easy to add support for other systems as well (volunteers
32wanted; if you want to try that, I'll be very glad to see the patches and
33include them in the next version).
34
35The utilities include:  (See manual pages for more details)
36
37  - lspci: displays detailed information about all PCI busses and devices.
38
39  - setpci: allows to read from and write to PCI device configuration
40    registers. For example, you can adjust the latency timers with it.
41    CAUTION: There is a couple of dangerous points and caveats, please read
42    the manual page first!
43
44  - update-pciids: download the current version of the pci.ids file.
45
46
472. Compiling and (un)installing
48~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
49Just run "make" to compile the package and then "make install" to install it.
50
51If you want to change the default installation location, please override
52the ROOT and PREFIX variables specified in the Makefile -- e.g., you can
53use "make PREFIX=/opt/pciutils ROOT=/opt/pciutils install" to create
54a separate installation not interfering with the rest of your system.
55
56When you are bored of dumping PCI registers, just use "make uninstall".
57
58
593. Getting new ID's
60~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
61The database of PCI ID's (the pci.ids file) gets out of date much faster
62than I release new versions of this package.
63
64If you are missing names for any of your devices or you just want to stay
65on the bleeding edge, download the most recent pci.ids file from
66http://pciids.sf.net/ (e.g., by running the update-ids utility).
67
68If your devices still appear as unknown, please send us their ID's and
69names, the detailed instructions for submissions are listed on the
70sf.net web page.
71
72
734. Available access methods
74~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
75The library (and therefore all the utilities) know a variety of methods for
76accessing the PCI registers. Here is a list of them, sorted by autodetection
77priority:
78
79   /proc/bus/pci	on all Linux systems since kernel 2.1.82.
80   /sys/bus/pci		on all Linux systems since kernel 2.5.xx.
81   direct port access	on i386 systems running Linux, GNU Hurd or Solaris/x86;
82			available only to root, useful if no other access
83			method is available or you want to hunt kernel bugs
84   /dev/pci		used on FreeBSD
85   lsdev + odmget	used on AIX
86   libpci		used on NetBSD
87   dumps		reading of dumps produced by `lspci -x'
88			(this one is not autodetected)
89
90
915. Using the library
92~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
93There is still no documentation for the library, if you want to use it
94in your programs, please follow the comments in lib/pci.h and in the
95example program lib/example.c.
96
97
986. Feedback
99~~~~~~~~~~~
100If you have any bug reports or suggestions, send them to the author.
101
102If you have any new ID's, I'll be very glad to add them to the database, but
103please take a look at http://pciids.sf.net/ first and follow the instructions.
104
105If you want, subscribe to [email protected] (send
106"subscribe linux-pci" to [email protected]).
107Release notes about new versions will be send to the list and problems with
108the Linux PCI support will be probably discussed there, too.
109
110
1117. Miscellanea
112~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
113You also might want to look at the pciutils web page containing release
114notes and other news: http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/pciutils.shtml .
115
116There also exists a utility called PowerTweak which is able to fine tune
117parameters of many chipsets much better than the Bridge Optimization code
118in Linux kernel (already removed in 2.3.x). See http://powertweak.sf.net/
119for more information.
120
121					Have fun
122							Martin
123