BIOSDECODE(8)						      System Manager's Manual						     BIOSDECODE(8)

NAME

       biosdecode - BIOS information decoder

SYNOPSIS

       biosdecode [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

       biosdecode  parses  the	BIOS memory and prints information about all structures (or entry points) it knows of. Currently known entry point
       types are:

       o SMBIOS (System Management BIOS)
	 Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

       o DMI (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of SMBIOS)
	 Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

       o SYSID

       o PNP (Plug and Play)

       o ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

       o BIOS32 (BIOS32 Service Directory)

       o PIR (PCI IRQ Routing)

       o 32OS (BIOS32 Extension, Compaq-specific)
	 See ownership for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.

       o SNY (Sony-specific, not decoded)

       o VPD (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)
	 Use vpddecode for a more detailed output.

       o FJKEYINF (Application Panel, Fujitsu-specific)

       biosdecode started its life as a part of dmidecode but as more entry point types were added, it was moved to a different program.

OPTIONS

       -d, --dev-mem FILE
	      Read memory from device FILE (default: /dev/mem)

       -h, --help
	      Display usage information and exit

       -V, --version
	      Display the version and exit

FILES

       /dev/mem

BUGS

       Most of the time, biosdecode prints too much information (you don't really care about addresses) or not enough (because it  doesn't  follow
       pointers and has no lookup tables).

AUTHORS

       Alan Cox, Jean Delvare

SEE ALSO

       dmidecode(8), mem(4), ownership(8), vpddecode(8)

dmidecode							   February 2007						     BIOSDECODE(8)