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@@ -1,146 +0,0 @@ -** INTRODUCTION ** - -Dmidecode reports information about your system's hardware as described in -your system BIOS according to the SMBIOS/DMI standard. This information -typically includes system manufacturer, model name, serial number, BIOS -version, asset tag as well as a lot of other details of varying level of -interest and reliability depending on the manufacturer. This will often -include usage status for the CPU sockets, expansion slots (e.g. AGP, PCI, -ISA) and memory module slots, and the list of I/O ports (e.g. serial, -parallel, USB). - -Part of the dmidecode code can be found in the Linux kernel, where DMI data -is used to enable or disable specific portions of code depending on the -specific hardware. Thus, one use of dmidecode is for kernel developers to -detect system "signatures" and add them to the kernel source code when -needed. - -Beware that DMI data have proven to be too unreliable to be blindly trusted. -Dmidecode does not scan your hardware, it only reports what the BIOS told it -to. - - -** INSTALLATION ** - -The home web page for dmidecode is hosted on Savannah: - http://www.nongnu.org/dmidecode/ -You will find the latest version (including CVS) there, as well as fresh news -and other interesting material, such as a list of related projects and -articles. - -This program was first written for Linux, and has since been reported to work -on FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BeOS and Cygwin as well. - -There's no configure script, so simply run "make" to build dmidecode, and -"make install" to install it. You also can use "make uninstall" to remove -all the files you installed. By default, files are installed in /usr/local -but you can change this behavior by editing the Makefile file and setting -prefix to wherever you want. You may change the C compiler and the -compilation flags as well. - -Optionally, you can run "make strip" prior to "make install" if you want -smaller binaries. However, be aware that this will prevent any further -attempt to debug the programs. - -Two parameters can be set in the Makefile file to make dmidecode work on -non-i386 systems. They should be used if your system uses the big endian -byte ordering (Motorola) or doesn't support unaligned memory accesses, -respectively. For example, compiling for a SPARC processor would require -both. Compiling for an IA64 processor requires the memory alignment -workaround, and it is enabled automatically. - - -** DOCUMENTATION ** - -Each tool has a manual page, found in the "man" subdirectory. Manual pages -are installed by "make install". See these manual pages for command line -interface details and tool specific information. - -For an history of the changes made to dmidecode, see the CHANGELOG file. - -If you need help, your best chances are to visit the web page (see the -INSTALLATION section above) or to get in touch with the developers directly. -Have a look at the AUTHORS file and contact one of the maintainers. - -If you want to help with the development of dmidecode, please consider -joining the dmidecode-devel discussion list: - http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/dmidecode-devel - - -** COMMON PROBLEMS ** - -MODEL SPECIFIC ISSUES - -Dmidecode used not to work on IBM T-series laptops nor on Fujitsu-Siemens -S-series laptops under Linux. This was due to the fact that the DMI table -is at a memory location we couldn't seem to reach through /dev/mem. Although -I believe this reveals a problem in the Linux kernel, which should be fixed, -a workaround was found by Chad Smith, and we are using it for now. See the -IA-64 subsection below for more details. I posted about this problem on the -LKML but never received any answer. Since then, the list of affected systems -was extended to IBM X-series laptops and xSeries x445 servers. - -IA-64 - -Dmidecode used to have problems on IA-64 systems. The first reason for -this is that dmidecode accesses the DMI table through /dev/mem, and reading -this file on an IA-64 system sometimes leads to a crash. A second reason is -that the method for locating the above-mentioned table differs on IA-64 -(compared to x86), so dmidecode was likely to miss the table entry point. -This complex issue was reported by Glen Foster and Chad Smith from HP. We -have since been working on a solution, and dmidecode now supports IA-64 -systems. Chad Smith noticed that, for some obscure reason, accessing the -/dev/mem file using mmap() instead of read() would work. Then, he wrote a -patch to export the DMI table address from the internal EFI table to /proc, -so dmidecode doesn't have to scan /dev/mem for it anymore. This patch was -since integrated into the main ia64 patch. Finally, I added the required -code to make it all work. So, in order to have dmidecode work on your IA-64 -system, you need two things: - - dmidecode version 2.2 or later; - - an ia64 patched 2.4 kernel, using linux-2.4.21-ia64-030702.diff or any - later version, or a 2.6 kernel. -Chad Smith tested dmidecode successfully on two different IA-64 systems, and -success has been reported by other users too. Non-Linux systems are not -supported. - -MMAP - -Note that mmap() is now used by default wherever possible, since this seems -to solve a number of problems. This default behavior can be changed in -config.h. Just to make sure this is clear, mmap() is not used for performance -reasons but to increase the number of systems on which dmidecode can be -successfully run. See the IA-64 subsection above for details. - -CYGWIN - -Dmidecode was reported to work under Cygwin. It seems that /dev/mem doesn't -work properly before version 1.5.10 though, so you will need to use at least -this version. - - -** MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS ** - -Three other tools come along with dmidecode: biosdecode, ownership and -vpddecode. These tools are only useful on systems with a BIOS, so they -are not built on IA-64 by default. - -BIOSDECODE - -This one prints all BIOS related information it can find in /dev/mem. -It used to be part of dmidecode itself, but as dmidecode was growing, -we felt that the non-DMI part had to be moved to a separate tool. - -OWNERSHIP - -This tool was written on a request by Luc Van de Velde for use with Novell -tools in his company. It retrieves the "ownership tag" that can be set on -most Compaq computers. Since it uses the same mechanisms dmidecode and -biosdecode use, and could be of some use for other people as well, we -decided to make it part of the project. - -VPDDECODE - -This tool prints the contents of the "vital product data" structure as -found in most IBM and Lenovo computers. It used to have a lookup table -for the machine name, but it was unreliable and hard to maintain so it -was ultimately dropped. It has a command line interface. |