biosdecode(8) - Linux man page

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:

SMBIOS (System Management BIOS )
Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.
DMI (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of SMBIOS )
Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.
SYSID
PNP (Plug and Play)
ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)
BIOS32 (BIOS32 Service Directory)
PIR (PCI IRQ Routing)
32OS (BIOS32 Extension, Compaq-specific)
See ownership for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.
SNY (Sony-specific, not decoded)
VPD (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)
Use vpddecode for a more detailed output.

biosdecode started its life as a part of dmidecode but as more entry point types were added, if 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