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INTRO(4) Device Drivers Manual (arc) INTRO(4)

introintroduction to 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 by NetBSD/arc. Software support for these devices comes in two forms. A hardware device may be supported with a character or block , or it may be used within the networking subsystem and have a . 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)

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
 

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.

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
 

This arc intro appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

DESKstation rPC44 and Tyne support is currently broken.

April 29, 2003 NetBSD-9.2