README

   1 This package contains the PCI Utilities, version @VERSION@.
   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 ############################################################################
  11
  12 Beware, this is a preliminary test version!  Anything might not work!
  13
  14 Some more things I intend to merge before the 2.2.0 release:
  15
  16    o  pcimodules and possibly other Linux module related stuff
  17    o  New ID's from the pciids project
  18    o  Cross-compilation support
  19
  20 ############################################################################
  21
  22
  23
  24 1. What's that?
  25 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  26 The PCI Utilities package contains a library for portable access to PCI bus
  27 configuration registers and several utilities based on this library.
  28
  29 Currently, pciutils work on all versions of Linux and they also have somewhat
  30 experimental support for FreeBSD, NetBSD, AIX, GNU Hurd and Solaris/x86.
  31 It should be very easy to add support for other systems as well (volunteers
  32 wanted; if you want to try that, I'll be very glad to see the patches and
  33 include them in the next version).
  34
  35 The 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
  47 2. Compiling and (un)installing
  48 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  49 Just run "make" to compile the package and then "make install" to install it.
  50
  51 If you want to change the default installation location, please override
  52 the ROOT and PREFIX variables specified in the Makefile -- e.g., you can
  53 use "make PREFIX=/opt/pciutils ROOT=/opt/pciutils install" to create
  54 a separate installation not interfering with the rest of your system.
  55
  56 When you are bored of dumping PCI registers, just use "make uninstall".
  57
  58
  59 3. Getting new ID's
  60 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  61 The database of PCI ID's (the pci.ids file) gets out of date much faster
  62 than I release new versions of this package.
  63
  64 If you are missing names for any of your devices or you just want to stay
  65 on the bleeding edge, download the most recent pci.ids file from
  66 http://pciids.sf.net/ (e.g., by running the update-ids utility).
  67
  68 If your devices still appear as unknown, please send us their ID's and
  69 names, the detailed instructions for submissions are listed on the
  70 sf.net web page.
  71
  72
  73 4. Available access methods
  74 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  75 The library (and therefore all the utilities) know a variety of methods for
  76 accessing the PCI registers. Here is a list of them, sorted by autodetection
  77 priority:
  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
  91 5. Using the library
  92 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  93 There is still no documentation for the library, if you want to use it
  94 in your programs, please follow the comments in lib/pci.h and in the
  95 example program lib/example.c.
  96
  97
  98 6. Feedback
  99 ~~~~~~~~~~~
 100 If you have any bug reports or suggestions, send them to the author.
 101
 102 If you have any new ID's, I'll be very glad to add them to the database, but
 103 please take a look at http://pciids.sf.net/ first and follow the instructions.
 104
 105 If you want, subscribe to linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (send
 106 "subscribe linux-pci" to majordomo@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz).
 107 Release notes about new versions will be send to the list and problems with
 108 the Linux PCI support will be probably discussed there, too.
 109
 110
 111 7. Miscellanea
 112 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 113 You also might want to look at the pciutils web page containing release
 114 notes and other news: http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/pciutils.shtml .
 115
 116 There also exists a utility called PowerTweak which is able to fine tune
 117 parameters of many chipsets much better than the Bridge Optimization code
 118 in Linux kernel (already removed in 2.3.x). See http://powertweak.sf.net/
 119 for more information.
 120
 121                                         Have fun
 122                                                         Martin