User:Barry Sharpe/In Progress

Overview
Weight 1

Key knowledge area(s)
 * Enable and disable integrated peripherals.
 * Configure systems with or without external peripherals such as keyboards.
 * Correctly set IRQ, DMA and I/O addresses for all BIOS administrated ports and settings for error handling.

Description: Candidates should be able to configure fundamental system hardware by making the correct settings in the system BIOS in x86 based hardware.

Key knowledge area(s) Enable and disable integrated peripherals. Configure systems with or without external peripherals such as keyboards. Correctly set IRQ, DMA and I/O addresses for all BIOS administrated ports and settings for error handling.

The following is a partial list of the used files, terms and utilities /proc/ioports /proc/interrupts /proc/dma /proc/pci

Module Objectives

 * /To understand the concept of a computer and its components/
 * /To understand the BIOS and its funtion with regards to booting the computer incorporating POST/
 * /To be able to navigate the BIOS and understand the menu system/
 * /To be able to Gain information from the BIOS and compare this information from within the Linux kernel/
 * /To be able to identify connected PCI devices via your computers BIOS and the use of the /proc/pci directory or the lspci command/
 * /To be able to gather information on the i/o ports in use what hardware is using them via /proc/ioports/
 * /To understand the concept of interupts or IRQ's and how to gather information through the linux kernel on the current IRQ status/
 * /To be able to determine the difference between non PCI and PCI interupt assignments/
 * /To understand the term DMA and how it applys to DMA capable devices/
 * /To understand and identify PnP devices both in the BIOS and in the Linux kernel via /proc/bus/pnp or lspnp command/
 * /To Understand the concept of IDE terms such as Cylinders, Heads, Sectors/
 * /To understand the term LBA / ATA-2 standard/
 * /To introduce you to disk name assignments in Linux/
 * /To introduce you to the term SCSI emulation within Linux/
 * /To use the hdparm command to gain information about your disk or disks/
 * /To introduce you to IEEE1394 and USB standards/
 * /To introduce the concept of floppy, COM & Parallel ports/