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  Linux sysfs support
  18    o  Support for PCI domains (at least partially; needed for sysfs)
  19    o  New ID's from the pciids project
  20    o  Cross-compilation support
  21
  22 ############################################################################
  23
  24
  25
  26 1. What's that?
  27 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  28 The PCI Utilities package contains a library for portable access to PCI bus
  29 configuration registers and several utilities based on this library.
  30
  31 Currently, pciutils work on all versions of Linux and they also have somewhat
  32 experimental support for FreeBSD, NetBSD and AIX. It should be very easy to add
  33 support for other systems as well (volunteers wanted; if you want to try that,
  34 please send the patches to me, so that I can include them in the next version).
  35
  36 The utilities include:  (See manual pages for more details)
  37
  38   - lspci: displays detailed information about all PCI busses and devices.
  39
  40   - setpci: allows to read from and write to PCI device configuration
  41     registers. For example, you can adjust the latency timers with it.
  42     CAUTION: There is a couple of dangerous points and caveats, please read
  43     the manual page first!
  44
  45   - update-pciids: download the current version of the pci.ids file.
  46
  47
  48 2. Compiling and (un)installing
  49 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  50 Just run "make" to compile the package and then "make install" to install it.
  51
  52 If you want to change the default installation location, please override
  53 the ROOT and PREFIX variables specified in the Makefile -- e.g., you can
  54 use "make PREFIX=/opt/pciutils ROOT=/opt/pciutils install" to create
  55 a separate installation not interfering with the rest of your system.
  56
  57 When you are bored of dumping PCI registers, just use "make uninstall".
  58
  59
  60 3. Getting new ID's
  61 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  62 The database of PCI ID's (the pci.ids file) gets out of date much faster
  63 than I release new versions of this package.
  64
  65 If you are missing names for any of your devices or you just want to stay
  66 on the bleeding edge, download the most recent pci.ids file from
  67 http://pciids.sf.net/ (e.g., by running the update-ids utility).
  68
  69 If your devices still appear as unknown, please send us their ID's and
  70 names, the detailed instructions for submissions are listed on the
  71 sf.net web page.
  72
  73
  74 4. Available access methods
  75 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  76 The library (and therefore all the utilities) know a variety of methods for
  77 accessing the PCI registers. Here is a list of them:
  78
  79    /proc/bus/pci        on all Linux systems since kernel 2.1.82.
  80    direct port access   on all Linux systems with i386, to be used when
  81                         /proc/bus/pci is unavailable or you want to scan
  82                         the bus manually when hunting kernel bugs.
  83    dumps                reading of dumps produced by `lspci -x'.
  84    lsdev + odmget       used on AIX
  85    /dev/pci             used on FreeBSD
  86    libpci               used on NetBSD
  87
  88
  89 5. Using the library
  90 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  91 There is still no documentation for the library, if you want to use it
  92 in your programs, please follow the comments in lib/pci.h and in the
  93 example program lib/example.c.
  94
  95
  96 6. Feedback
  97 ~~~~~~~~~~~
  98 If you have any bug reports or suggestions, send them to the author.
  99
 100 If you have any new ID's, I'll be very glad to add them to the database, but
 101 please take a look at http://pciids.sf.net/ first and follow the instructions.
 102
 103 If you want, subscribe to linux-pci@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (send
 104 "subscribe linux-pci" to majordomo@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz).
 105 Release notes about new versions will be send to the list and problems with
 106 the Linux PCI support will be probably discussed there, too.
 107
 108
 109 7. Miscellanea
 110 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 111 You also might want to look at the pciutils web page containing release
 112 notes and other news: http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mj/pciutils.html .
 113
 114 There also exists a utility called PowerTweak which is able to fine tune
 115 parameters of many chipsets much better than the Bridge Optimization code
 116 in Linux kernel (already removed in 2.3.x). See http://powertweak.sf.net/
 117 for more information.
 118
 119                                         Have fun
 120                                                         Martin