Manual: biosdecode

BIOSDECODE(8)					   System Manager's Manual				       BIOSDECODE(8)

NAME
       biosdecode - BIOS information decoder

SYNOPSIS
       biosdecode [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION
       biosdecode  parses  the	BIOS  memory and prints information about all structures (or entry points) it knows of. Cur‐
       rently known entry point types are:

       • SMBIOS (System Management BIOS)
	 Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

       • DMI (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of SMBIOS)
	 Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

       • SYSID

       • PNP (Plug and Play)

       • ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

       • BIOS32 (BIOS32 Service Directory)

       • PIR (PCI IRQ Routing)

       • 32OS (BIOS32 Extension, Compaq-specific)
	 See ownership for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.

       • SNY (Sony-specific, not decoded)

       • VPD (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)
	 Use vpddecode for a more detailed output.

       • FJKEYINF (Application Panel, Fujitsu-specific)

       biosdecode started its life as a part of dmidecode but as more entry point types were added, it was moved to  a	dif‐
       ferent program.

OPTIONS
       -d, --dev-mem FILE
	      Read memory from device FILE (default: /dev/mem)

	   --pir full
	      Decode the details of the PCI IRQ routing table.	Only full mode is supported.

       -h, --help
	      Display usage information and exit

       -V, --version
	      Display the version and exit

FILES
       /dev/mem

BUGS
       Most  of	 the time, biosdecode prints too much information (you don't really care about addresses) or not enough (be‐
       cause it doesn't follow pointers and has no lookup tables).

AUTHORS
       Alan Cox, Jean Delvare

SEE ALSO
       dmidecode(8), mem(4), ownership(8), vpddecode(8)

dmidecode						February 2007					       BIOSDECODE(8)