README

   1 This package contains the PCI Utilities, version 2.1.99-test1.
   2
   3 Copyright (c) 1997--2003 Martin Mares <mj@ucw.cz>
   4
   5 All files in this package can be freely distributed and used according
   6 to 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 1. What's that?
  11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  12 The PCI Utilities package contains a library for portable access to PCI bus
  13 configuration registers and several utilities based on this library.
  14
  15 Currently, pciutils work on all versions of Linux and they also have somewhat
  16 experimental support for FreeBSD, NetBSD and AIX. It should be very easy to add
  17 support for other systems as well (volunteers wanted; if you want to try that,
  18 please send the patches to me, so that I can include them in the next version).
  19
  20 The utilities include:  (See manual pages for more details)
  21
  22   - lspci: displays detailed information about all PCI busses and devices.
  23
  24   - setpci: allows to read from and write to PCI device configuration
  25     registers. For example, you can adjust the latency timers with it.
  26     CAUTION: There is a couple of dangerous points and caveats, please read
  27     the manual page first!
  28
  29   - update-pciids: download the current version of the pci.ids file.
  30
  31
  32 2. Compiling and (un)installing
  33 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  34 Just run "make" to compile the package and then "make install" to install it.
  35
  36 If you want to change the default installation location, please override
  37 the ROOT and PREFIX variables specified in the Makefile -- e.g., you can
  38 use "make PREFIX=/opt/pciutils ROOT=/opt/pciutils install" to create
  39 a separate installation not interfering with the rest of your system.
  40
  41 When you are bored of dumping PCI registers, just use "make uninstall".
  42
  43
  44 3. Getting new ID's
  45 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  46 The database of PCI ID's (the pci.ids file) gets out of date much faster
  47 than I release new versions of this package.
  48
  49 If you are missing names for any of your devices or you just want to stay
  50 on the bleeding edge, download the most recent pci.ids file from
  51 http://pciids.sf.net/ (e.g., by running the update-ids utility).
  52
  53 If your devices still appear as unknown, please send us their ID's and
  54 names, the detailed instructions for submissions are listed on the
  55 sf.net web page.
  56
  57
  58 4. Available access methods
  59 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  60 The library (and therefore all the utilities) know a variety of methods for
  61 accessing the PCI registers. Here is a list of them:
  62
  63    /proc/bus/pci        on all Linux systems since kernel 2.1.82.
  64    direct port access   on all Linux systems with i386, to be used when
  65                         /proc/bus/pci is unavailable or you want to scan
  66                         the bus manually when hunting kernel bugs.
  67    dumps                reading of dumps produced by `lspci -x'.
  68    lsdev + odmget       used on AIX
  69    /dev/pci             used on FreeBSD
  70    libpci               used on NetBSD
  71
  72
  73 5. Using the library
  74 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  75 There is still no documentation for the library, if you want to use it
  76 in your programs, please follow the comments in lib/pci.h and in the
  77 example program lib/example.c.
  78
  79
  80 6. Feedback
  81 ~~~~~~~~~~~
  82 If you have any bug reports or suggestions, send them to the author.
  83
  84 If you have any new ID's, I'll be very glad to add them to the database, but
  85 please take a look at http://pciids.sf.net/ first and follow the instructions.
  86
  87 If you want, subscribe to linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (send
  88 "subscribe linux-pci" to majordomo@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz).
  89 Release notes about new versions will be send to the list and problems with
  90 the Linux PCI support will be probably discussed there, too.
  91
  92
  93 7. Miscellanea
  94 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  95 You also might want to look at the pciutils web page containing release
  96 notes and other news: http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/pciutils.html .
  97
  98 There also exists a utility called PowerTweak which is able to fine tune
  99 parameters of many chipsets much better than the Bridge Optimization code
 100 in Linux kernel (already removed in 2.3.x). See http://powertweak.sf.net/
 101 for more information.
 102
 103                                         Have fun
 104                                                         Martin