[Novalug] Accessing BIOS

Fri Dec 18 19:55:55 EST 2009

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> Ya know, it's paragraphs like the second one in this post that just suck
> the life out of any of us that provide answers, insights and other information
> of our own, free time.  It really inhibits many of us to even bother wanting to
> help, respond or otherwise -- _especially_ if we know of or even work with
> some of the authors.  People complain we "take too many things personal,"
> well, sometimes, it is a bit personal for us, because of such professional and
> even personal relationships.  Times like this I really question why I bother
> with such garbage when it helps no one.

I appreciate you posts Bryan. Thank you for taking the time to post them.

As to utility of Linux shell applications.

Years ago when I was using a DOS machine I found a useful article on 
dos commands which was on the theme of "how to do something".

So the index was a series of

How do I do something

And then the question had as its answer the command(s) that would do it.

It would not be hard for a similar Linux site to be set up on a sharable 
site like the novalug home pages. People could write up the replies in 
the format I mentioned. A lot of us do not know everything but do know 
some things. Helping is very much appreciated.

People who have come to computing since the instigation of GUI's and icons 
to run programs may not realize the need in pre gui times for 
relatively short commands to bring something up.

Of course there is the useful Linux command "apropos" which does suggest 
commands that may apply to the topic one is wondering about.

It does not bring up dmidecode however when it is run:

~$>apropos bios
BIO_pop (3ssl)       - add and remove BIOs from a chain.
BIO_push (3ssl)      - add and remove BIOs from a chain.
BIO_set_accept_bios (3ssl) - accept BIO
biosdecode (8)       - BIOS information decoder
edd_id (8)           - udev callout to identify BIOS disk drives via EDD
lmhosts (5)          - The Samba NetBIOS hosts file
nmblookup (1)        - NetBIOS over TCP/IP client used to lookup NetBIOS names
nmblookup.samba3 (1) - NetBIOS over TCP/IP client used to lookup NetBIOS  names
toshset (1)          - manipulate bios and hardware settings of Toshiba laptops
vbetool (1)          - run real-mode video BIOS code to alter hardware state

but
$sudo apropos dmi
CPAN::Admin (3pm)    - A CPAN Shell for CPAN admins
arecordmidi (1)      - record Standard MIDI Files
dmidecode (8)        - DMI table decoder
getent (1)           - get entries from administrative database
gpasswd (1)          - administer the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow files
HTML::Mason::Admin (3pm) - Mason Administrator's Manual
intro (8)            - Introduction to administration and privileged commands
ip6tables (8)        - IPv6 packet filter administration
iptables (8)         - administration tool for IPv4 packet filtering and NAT
   is_context_customizable (3) - check whether SELinux context type is
    customizable by the administrator.
lpadmin (8)          - configure cups printers and classes
net (8)              - Tool for administration of Samba and remote CIFS servers.
net.samba3 (8)       - Tool for administration of Samba and remote CIFS servers.
network-admin (1)    - Network Administration Tool
policytool (1)       - PolicyTool Administration GUI Utility
services-admin (1)   - Services Administration Tool
shares-admin (1)     - Shared Folders Administration Tool
sudo_root (8)        - How to run administrative commands
svnadmin (1)         - Subversion repository administration tool
time-admin (1)       - Time Administration Tool
tora (1)             - A graphical toolkit for database developers and  administrators
users-admin (1)      - Users Administration Tool

does have a reference ot dmidecode.

When I ran dmidecode I found out that one of my devices had been:

tested by James

:-)

I always like finding out things like this even if I don't have much 
of an idea how to do anything with the information.

Thanks again for your posts however.

>
> I spent the last month or two largely lurking, then started to post on-list again.
> I tried to make a similar point with a recent thread that, as I admitted to
> people who sent supporting e-mails off-list, I should have taking it off-list
> much sooner, letting the other person have the last word on-list (which I still
> did, just should have done it posts earlier).  All I do is piss people off or,
> worse yet, make myself look like the "center-point of contention" and the"
> "scape goat" for the fact that other people just want to complain, dislike,
> blame or -- in some cases -- even hate with a skewed set of virtues some
> projects or even people.  All the meanwhile they've lost their own focus
> that A) they started the non-sense, B) I didn't come in until later, C) I'm just
> trying to point out their folly but D) the only thing I did wrong was keep it
> going (yes, that's my fatal error).
>
> So, shall we one last time?  I'll be brief ... please take these to heart ...
>
> 1)  DMI (acronym):  This is not a Linux created term.  It's a low-level, hardware
> vendor's term.  So this "codeword" you speak of does _not_ come from Linux.
>
> 2)  dmi* (commands):  Named DMI to start because DMI is not a Linux term,
> and _all_ other platforms refer to DMI as well (even Windows).  The "decode"
> means "decode" the, quite binary, hardware-level, DMI information into a
> textual format.  Again, this is what _all_ platforms do, with similar naming.
>
> 3)  Other options (e.g., GUI):  GNOME, KDE, etc... ship with hardware browsers
> that report the DMI output _no_different_ than other platform GUIs as well.
>
> 4)  Stanek (author):  If you do any Windows commands, you've likely have
> Stanek's books on your shelf.  Why?  A) Windows has _no_ "man" system
> (it's help is pathetic in comparison, especially keyword searches), B) Windows
> has _no_ standards (POSIX and GNU are 100x better on command names).
> C) Microsoft changes them every 5 years, whereas POSIX is perpetual
> (I just updated my MCSA/MCSE Windows Server 2000-2003 to MCITP on
> Windows Server 2008 earlier this year, and I cannot believe the lack of
> consistency, standards and acronym hell changes)  D) And don't even get me
> started on the internals of NT (I've been dealing with them for 17 years -- yes,
> before NT 3.1 came out).
>

Certainly my experience as an intelligent user has been in agreement with 
this discussion on how <sarcasm alert> easy it is to learn windows 
commands <end sarcasm>.

> So, what are you "comparing" Linux to here?  I'm just going back to lurking.
> I've made my points, at the expense of the list, so it's time to leave them be.
> Those who don't want to help themselves, and take every moment of naivity
> and ignorant with a finger-point and slant at Linux are only going to never
> learn.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Alan Grimes <agrimes at speakeasy.net>
>
> Aaron Porter wrote:
>> You can find some (but not most) of what you're talking about with dmidecode.
>
> GODDAMN!!!! I had no inkling of a clue that such a useful utility even
> existed. I would never have found it through google and I can't imagine
> any way other than overhearing this conceversation that I would ever
> have known about such a thing.
>

actually when I used google with these keywords:

Linux decode bios

the second entry in the list that came up on the first page was:

dmidecode(8): DMI table decoder - Linux man page
dmidecode(8) - Linux man page. Name. dmidecode - DMI table decoder ... 
SMBIOS stands for System Management BIOS , while DMI stands for Desktop 
Management ...
linux.die.net/man/8/dmidecode - Cached - Similar -

the biggest problem I have with google is one some useful term has been 
made into the name of a rock group, a pornographic act or a commercial 
product and then all you can get is fan pages to the rock group in the 
first 20 pages of response....

a number of years ago it was impossible to get a legitamat reponse to 
the search phrase "mexican hairless" - as in the dog breed also called a 
Xoloitzcuintle, but google seems to have fixed that :-)

> Linux would be a hundred times more useful if its utilities weren't
> named with codewords relating to things that most people have never
> heard of. =(
> _______________________________________________
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> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>

waiting for the snow.....

in my native land, California, we had reservations for the snow - they 
were called "the mountains" and when you wanted to see snow you went 
up there. of course current climate conditions are modifying this....

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