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(4)
    serial communications interface
ess(4)
    ESS Technology AudioDrive family audio device driver
x86/fdc(4)
    floppy controller
joy(4)
    game controller
x86/lpt(4)
    parallel port driver
pciide(4)
    PCI IDE controllers driver
pckbc(4)
    PC keyboard/mouse controller
sb(4)
    SoundBlaster family audio device driver
wss(4)
    Windows Sound System hardware driver
ym(4)
    Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound driver

SEE ALSO
i386/intro(4), isa(4), pci(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.