biosdecode (8)

biosdecode [OPTIONS]

biosdecode parses the \s-1BIOS\s0 memory and prints information about all structures (or entry points) it knows of. Currently known entry point types are:

• \s-1SMBIOS\s0 (System Management \s-1BIOS\s0)

  Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

• \s-1DMI\s0 (Desktop Management Interface, a legacy version of \s-1SMBIOS\s0)

  Use dmidecode for a more detailed output.

• \s-1SYSID\s0

• \s-1PNP\s0 (Plug and Play)

• \s-1ACPI\s0 (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

• \s-1BIOS32\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Service Directory)

• \s-1PIR\s0 (\s-1PCI\s0 \s-1IRQ\s0 Routing)

• \s-132OS\s0 (\s-1BIOS32\s0 Extension, Compaq-specific)

  See ownership for a Compaq ownership tag retrieval tool.

• \s-1SNY\s0 (Sony-specific, not decoded)

• \s-1VPD\s0 (Vital Product Data, IBM-specific)

  Use vpddecode for a more detailed output.

• \s-1FJKEYINF\s0 (Application Panel, Fujitsu-specific)

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

-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

/dev/mem

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).

Alan Cox, Jean Delvare

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