intro
—
introduction to sparc64 special files and hardware support
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).
This section describes the hardware supported on the SPARC64 platform. 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.
config(1),
autoconf(4),
cd(4),
cgsix(4),
ch(4),
kbd(4),
le(4),
magma(4),
mem(4),
ms(4),
openprom(4),
scsi(4),
sd(4),
ss(4),
st(4),
tcx(4),
uk(4)
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.
- auxio
- Auxiliary I/O & LED
- bpp
- Bi-directional Parallel port
- cgsix
- 8 bit obio (sun4c & sun4m), Sbus color graphics frame buffer
- com
- PC-style serial port
- eeprom
- Sun non-volatile configuration RAM driver
- esp
- ESP200 SCSI controller
FSBE/S (X1053A, part # 501-2015) Fast SCSI-2/Buffered Ethernet Sbus
controller
- fdc
- Floppy Disk Controller
- ffb
- Creator & Creaor3D graphics frame buffer
- isp
- Qlogic ISP Sbus and PCI SCSI controller
- kbd
- Sun type 2, type 3, type 4, and type 5 keyboards (on zs or com)
- le/lebuffer
- AMD 7990 LANCE Ethernet controller
- lpt
- PC-style parallel port
- magma
- Magma Sp Serial/Parallel board device driver
- ms
- Sun mouse (on zs or com)
- openprom
- Sun Open boot PROM (what became IEEE 1275) configuration driver
- power
- power management halt(8)
and shutdown(8)
commands can use it to power down the system.
- sab
- Siemens 82532 & 83538 serial controller
- zs
- Zilog 8530 serial controller
PCI devices are supported through the
pci(4) bus and associated
devices.
PCMCIA devices are supported through the
pcmcia(4) bus and
associated devices.
Cardbus devices are supported through the
cardbus(4) bus and
associated devices.
USB devices are supported through the
usb(4) bus and associated
devices.
The following devices are not supported, due to unavailability of either
documentation, sample hardware, or willing volunteer:
- atifb
- ATI 3D Rage Pro VGA graphics adapter (Ultra5, Ultra10)
- fdc
- sun4u floppy drive controllers (EBus based machines only)
- cgfourteen
- 24 bit Sbus color frame buffer
- cgthree
- 8 bit Sbus color frame buffer
This sparc64 intro
appeared in NetBSD
1.6. Large chunks of text carefully recycled (shamelessly appropriated)
from NetBSD/sparc intro
.