Understanding the hardware information displayed at boot time

At boot time, a table of hardware information is displayed after the copyright information. This table represents your hardware configuration as recognized by the operating system.

Sample boot display

   device    address    vector dma comment
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   cpu      -             -     -  unit=1 family=5 type=Pentium
   cpuid    -             -     -  unit=1 vend=GenuineIntel mod=2 step=B5
   fpu      -             13    -  unit=1 type=80387-compatible
   floppy   0x03F2-0x03F7  06   2  unit=0 type=96ds15
   serial   0x02F8-0x02FF  03   -  unit=1 type=Standard nports=1
   parallel 0x0378-0x037A  07   -  unit=0
   console  -              -    -  unit=ega type=0 12 screens=68k
   disk     0x01F0-0x01F7  36   -  type=W0 unit=0 cyls=791 hds=16 secs=48
   adapter  0x8000-0x8CDC  11   -  type=eiad ha=0 id=7 fts=std

Key:

cpu/cpuid

The CPU type(s), stepping, and vendor information.

device

name of the hardware

address

address in hexadecimal

vector

interrupt vector

dma

direct memory access channel

comment

other details about the hardware

fpu

floating-point unit present (Intel 80387 math coprocessor, 80486 CPU and Pentium chips)

floppy

high density 5.25-inch floppy disk drive (type=96ds15)

serial

this is COM1 with one port (nports=1, no multiport card is installed)

parallel

this is parallel port lp0 (unit=0)

console

the console has an EGA video adapter (unit=ega) compatible with type 0 (IBM EGA), with 12 multiscreens that take up 68KB of kernel space

disk

Western Digital st506 controller number 0 (W0), hard drive 0 (unit 0), as well as the number of cylinders, heads, and sectors

adapter

Adaptec AHA-174x host adapter. See ``Boot time messages from host adapter drivers'' for more information.

The hwconfig utility can display or access this information at any time, using the configuration information stored in the file /usr/adm/hwconfig. Refer to the hwconfig(C) manual page for more information.

In addition, the eisa(ADM) utility can be used to list the cards installed in EISA machines, and the slot(C) utility used for MCA machines.