INTRO(4)

NAME
intro - introduction to special files and hardware support

DESCRIPTION
The manual pages in section 4 describe 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(8) 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 on the SPARC 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 will have to be rebooted.

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

LIST OF DEVICES
The devices listed below are supported in this incarnation of the system. Pseudo-devices are not listed. Devices are sorted by their type and driver name; not all supported devices are listed.

  Audio interfaces
audioamd(4)
    SPARC telephone quality audio device
audiocs(4)
    SPARC CS4231 audio device

  Frame buffers
agten(4)
    Fujitsu AG-10e accelerated 24-bit color frame buffer
bwtwo(4)
    monochromatic frame buffer
cgeight(4)
    24-bit color frame buffer
cgfour(4)
    8-bit color frame buffer
cgfourteen(4)
    accelerated 8/24-bit color frame buffer
cgsix(4)
    accelerated 8-bit color frame buffer
cgthree(4)
    8-bit color frame buffer
cgtwelve(4)
    accelerated 24-bit color frame buffer
cgtwo(4)
    8-bit color frame buffer
mgx(4)
    SMS MGX and MGXPlus accelerated 8/24-bit color frame buffers
rfx(4)
    Vitec/Connectware/AP&D RasterFlex framebuffer series
tcx(4)
    accelerated 8/24-bit color frame buffer
tvtwo(4)
    accelerated 24-bit color frame buffer
vigra(4)
    8-bit SBus color frame buffer with VGA-compatible modes
zx(4)
    accelerated 24-bit color frame buffer

  Network interfaces
be(4)
    SPARC 10/100 Ethernet device
ep(4)
    3Com EtherLink III and Fast EtherLink III 10/100 Ethernet device
hme(4)
    Sun Happy Meal 10/100 Ethernet device
ie(4)
    Intel i82586 Ethernet device
le(4),
    lebuffer(4), ledma(4) AMD LANCE Ethernet device
ne(4)
    NE2000 and compatible 10/100 Ethernet device
qe(4)
    SPARC 10/100 Ethernet device
qec(4)
    SPARC Quad Ethernet Controller
wi(4)
    WaveLAN/IEEE, PRISM 2-3, and Spectrum24 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device

  PCMCIA bridges
stp(4)
    SBus PCMCIA bridge

  SCSI adapters
esp(4)
    ESP NCR 53c94 on-board or SBus SCSI interface
qlw(4)
    QLogic ISP1000/1020/1x40/1x80/1x160 SCSI controller
si(4)
    NCR 5380 Sun SCSI 3 VME SCSI controller
sw(4)
    NCR 5380 SCSI Weird Sun 4/100 on-board SCSI controller

  Serial and parallel interfaces
magma(4)
    Magma Sp Serial/Parallel board device driver
spif(4)
    SBus (spiffy) Serial/Parallel Interface
zs(4),
    zstty(4), zskbd(4) Zilog 8530 (ZSCC) serial communications driver

  SMD controllers
xd(4)
    Xylogics 753 or 7053 VME SMD disk controller driver
xy(4)
    Xylogics 450 or 451 VME SMD disk controller driver

  Force CPU-5 specific devices
daadio(4)
    MATRIX MD-DAADIO digital/analog, analog/digital, parallel I/O board
fga(4)
    SPARC Force FGA5000 VME/SBus bridge driver
scf(4)
    SPARC Force sysconfig driver

  Tadpole SPARCbook specific devices
com(4)
    serial communications interface
pninek(4)
    Weitek Power9000 accelerated frame buffer
pnozz(4)
    Weitek Power9100 accelerated frame buffer
tctrl(4)
    Tadpole Microcontroller Interface
tslot(4)
    Tadpole PCMCIA Controller

  Miscellaneous devices
clock(4)
    SPARC clock driver
fdc(4)
    NEC765 compatible floppy disk driver
led(4)
    SPARC LED driver
openprom(4)
    OPENPROM and EEPROM interface
presto(4)
    Prestoserve battery-backed memory
timer(4)
    SPARC Timer
xbox(4)
    SPARC SBus Expansion Subsystem

SEE ALSO
autoconf(4), config(8)

HISTORY
The sparc intro first appeared in NetBSD 1.3 and OpenBSD 2.3.