NAME

intro — introduction to special files and hardware support

DESCRIPTION

This section describes the special files, related driver functions, and networking support available in the system. In this part of the manual, the SYNOPSIS section of each configurable device gives a sample specification for use in constructing a system description for the config(1) program. The DIAGNOSTICS section lists messages which may appear on the console and/or in the system error log /var/log/messages due to errors in device operation; see syslogd(8) for more information.

This section contains both devices which may be configured into the system and network related information. The networking support is introduced in netintro(4).

DEVICE SUPPORT

This section describes the hardware supported by NetBSD/arc. Software support for these devices comes in two forms. A hardware device may be supported with a character or block device driver, or it may be used within the networking subsystem and have a network interface driver. Block and character devices are accessed through files in the file system of a special type; see mknod(8). Network interfaces are indirectly accessed through the interprocess communication facilities provided by the system; see socket(2).

A hardware device is identified to the system at configuration time and the appropriate device or network interface driver is then compiled into the system. When the resultant system is booted, the autoconfiguration facilities in the system probe for the device and, if found, enable the software support for it. If a device does not respond at autoconfiguration time it is not accessible at any time afterwards. To enable a device which did not autoconfigure, the system must be rebooted.

The autoconfiguration system is described in autoconf(4). A list of the supported devices is given below.

SEE ALSO

config(1), autoconf(4)

HARDWARE

NetBSD/arc supports a variety of systems conforming to the ARC machine specification. The following systems are supported:

Acer PICA

DESKstation rPC44

DESKstation Tyne

MIPS Magnum 4000

NEC Express 5800/230 PCI R4K

NEC Express 5800/240 EISA R4K

NEC Express RISCserver

NEC ImageRISCstation

NEC RISCserver 2200

NEC RISCstation 2200 EISA

NEC RISCstation 2200 PCI

NEC RISCstation 2250

LIST OF DEVICES

The devices listed below are supported in this incarnation of the system. Devices are indicated by their functional interface. Not all supported devices are listed.

arcsisabr

DESKstation rPC44 ISA host bridge

jazzio

Jazz internal bus host bridge

jazzisabr

Jazz ISA/EISA bus bridge

necpb

NEC RISCstation PCI host bridge

tyneisabr

DESKstation Tyne ISA host bridge

The following devices on the Jazz internal bus are supported.

asc

NCR 53c9x-based SCSI interface

com

NS16550-based serial communications interface

fdc

Floppy disk controller

lpt

Parallel port

mcclock

DS1287 real-time clock

oosiop

Symbios/NCR 53c700-based SCSI interface

osiop

Symbios/NCR 53c710-based SCSI interface

pckbc

PC keyboard controller

sn

SONIC Ethernet

timer

Interval timer

vga

VGA graphics

PCI devices are supported through the pci(4) bus and associated device drivers.

ISA devices are supported through the isa(4) bus and associated device drivers.

Console devices using ISA, Jazzio, or PCI video adaptors and standard AT or PS/2 keyboards are supported by the machine independent wscons(4) console driver.

UNSUPPORTED DEVICES

The following devices are not supported, due to unavailability of either documentation or sample hardware:

AD1848 audio on Jazzio

EISA devices

VXL framebuffer on MIPS Magnum and RISCstation 2200 EISA

HISTORY

This arc intro appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

BUGS

DESKstation rPC44 and Tyne support is currently broken.