using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

How can I effectively use /dev/nvram to toggle certain cmos settings? What
if I just cat /dev/nvram > /etc/cmos.conf or something, edit it in pico,
and then do the reverse, cat /etc/cmos.conf > /dev/nvram? I heard somewhere
that using this would allow changing of the cmos settings without needing
to actually go to that screen that you normally do it in. Does this work
good? If not, how can I get the cmos setup to speak using either a dectalk
express or a double talk pc internal. I need to change some power settings
on my laptop so it doesn't enter standby when I'm reading webpages, or shut
the hard drive down when I'm downloading files, I disabled all the power
stuff in windows and it still seems to do it, so it must be controlled in
the advanced power management settings in cmos. I'm thinking of putting
debian on it soon and hate the problem when it goes to sleep when I'm
reading a site no matter what I do. It's probably not good for my
decexpress either, to have computer power just suddenly shut down in the
middle of speech. I guess the bios monitors for keyboard or mouse activity
which when I'm listening isn't present. If I press buttons though, my
screen reader, window-eyes interrupts so I have to start over anyway, I
usually use read to end and such automatic functions.

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[Kerry Hoath]

/dev/nvram is a binary file. You can't easily edit binary in pico.
You'd need to use a hex editor and you'd need to recalculate the checksums
before writing the data back to cmos or the machine will hang at boot with an
invalid system configuration message.
IF you're oldschool enough to think you can do it, get a copy of Ralf Brown's
interrupt list off ftp.simtelnet.net in msdos/info, get cmos.lst, figure out
exactly what revision of what bios you have and what extended bytes in cmos
do, write a bit of software, then release it under the gpl so we can all use it :-)

Regards, Kerry.
On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 05:30:47PM -0500, brent harding wrote:
> How can I effectively use /dev/nvram to toggle certain cmos settings? What
> if I just cat /dev/nvram > /etc/cmos.conf or something, edit it in pico,
> and then do the reverse, cat /etc/cmos.conf > /dev/nvram? I heard somewhere
> that using this would allow changing of the cmos settings without needing
> to actually go to that screen that you normally do it in. Does this work
> good? If not, how can I get the cmos setup to speak using either a dectalk
> express or a double talk pc internal. I need to change some power settings
> on my laptop so it doesn't enter standby when I'm reading webpages, or shut
> the hard drive down when I'm downloading files, I disabled all the power
> stuff in windows and it still seems to do it, so it must be controlled in
> the advanced power management settings in cmos. I'm thinking of putting
> debian on it soon and hate the problem when it goes to sleep when I'm
> reading a site no matter what I do. It's probably not good for my
> decexpress either, to have computer power just suddenly shut down in the
> middle of speech. I guess the bios monitors for keyboard or mouse activity
> which when I'm listening isn't present. If I press buttons though, my
> screen reader, window-eyes interrupts so I have to start over anyway, I
> usually use read to end and such automatic functions.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
--
Kerry Hoath: kerry@gotss.eu.org
Alternates: kerry@emusys.com.au kerry@gotss.spice.net.au or khoath@lis.net.au
ICQ UIN: 8226547

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

I wish I knew what I had, is there an autodetect that will tell me how to
toggle a few settings? I actually need it on my dell laptop, more than
likely the bios is made by dell, as they offer flash roms for it. What do
hex editors do? Does it actually make text out of the file you edit with,
and convert it back later? Can the setup be done over a remote connection
easily some how, have the cmos answer a modem or something so I can change
the power settings to allow me to read documents without the laptop going
on standby? It just could be that if I flash rom something that takes long
enough that the machine might just go on standby and totally make useless
the device I was working with. Why is /dev/nvram in existence, I just
loaded the module and ran MAKEDEV NVRAM because the device driver wasn't
found.
At 09:15 AM

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[Kerry Hoath]

Currently you'll need somebody with eyes to read the cmos screens to you.
I build systems and even I need sighted help in the cmos.
On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 11:20:23PM -0500, brent harding wrote:
> I wish I knew what I had, is there an autodetect that will tell me how to
> toggle a few settings? I actually need it on my dell laptop, more than
> likely the bios is made by dell, as they offer flash roms for it. What do
> hex editors do? Does it actually make text out of the file you edit with,
> and convert it back later? Can the setup be done over a remote connection
> easily some how, have the cmos answer a modem or something so I can change
> the power settings to allow me to read documents without the laptop going
> on standby? It just could be that if I flash rom something that takes long
> enough that the machine might just go on standby and totally make useless
> the device I was working with. Why is /dev/nvram in existence, I just
> loaded the module and ran MAKEDEV NVRAM because the device driver wasn't
> found.
> At 09:15 AM
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
--
Kerry Hoath: kerry@gotss.eu.org
Alternates: kerry@emusys.com.au kerry@gotss.spice.net.au or khoath@lis.net.au
ICQ UIN: 8226547

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

Yuck, I wonder if /dev/nvram is the best approach, just to turn off a
couple settings on my laptop I don't need. There's probably security turned
on by default, that virus protection that will prevent a linux disk from
booting, don't know how the boot sequence knows which drive, cd or floppy
is in the machine, as I have to swap them out to switch what I'll use,
making it really hard to install linux from cd when booting from a floppy.
Is there a way I could see the cmos settings from another computer, hooked
to the parallel port, or over a modem or network interface? Most tasks that
I need to let run are intensive enough that I can't really do much else
when I'm doing them, like downloading files or listening to streaming audio
that takes up enough bandwidth it's not worth doing much else because it
takes forever. Setting my machine to turn on at a certain time is another
cmos exclusive that requires going in there to schedule the task to be
performed at a certain time, my laptop is probably the only system I have
that may support that, thought I heard about it somewhere, but can't find
any settings in windows to control it, so it's probably in cmos. I may need
to change things regularly to record internet shows that I like to listen
to, some later at night that I don't want to wake up and turn it on, get
online, and do it, once that power thing is straightened out, I'll only
need access to that automatic startups for when things come on, it'd get to
be a pain to have to have someone set up all my recording times so the
computer starts at the right time, and shuts down when the show ends, as
the same would need to be done if it were a VCR too, as no speech is
available.
Is it safe to just use a timer hooked to the regular computer that shuts
the power off when the time is to end, and use crontab in linux to initiate
the recording?

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[Kirk Reiser]

I haven't actually played with the nvram device although it's one of
those things I want to play with at some point.  It won't have any
affect on your settings in linux though because linux doesn't use the
bios or cmos after passing the lilo prompt.  You could probably edit
the cmos for affecting it under windows though.  If you are having
problems with it under linux then most likely you have power
management turned on in your kernel.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[Kerry Hoath]

Actually the Linux apm stuff is slightly controlled by the bios if apm is
enabled in bios and kernel has apm support then Linux does power management. If
you ommit the apm support, then your machine can go to sleep and never wake
up, or my network card (rtl8139 bodgey one) used to do that.

Linux does actually look in the cmos structures when driving mfm/esdi drives,
also for drives that don't support the IDE identify command or the ones you
specify noprobe for.
There is cmos reading code in hd.c I think. Linux also reads and writes the
hardware clock; but most operating systems do.

Regards, Kerry.
On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 07:21:51PM -0400, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> I haven't actually played with the nvram device although it's one of
> those things I want to play with at some point.  It won't have any
> affect on your settings in linux though because linux doesn't use the
> bios or cmos after passing the lilo prompt.  You could probably edit
> the cmos for affecting it under windows though.  If you are having
> problems with it under linux then most likely you have power
> management turned on in your kernel.
> 
>   Kirk
> 
> -- 
> 
> Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
> e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
> phone: (519) 661-3061
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
--
Kerry Hoath: kerry@gotss.eu.org
Alternates: kerry@emusys.com.au kerry@gotss.spice.net.au or khoath@lis.net.au
ICQ UIN: 8226547

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

Oh, so when it goes to sleep, and you hit the power button to rezume, it
won't turn on again? Doesn't that make sending the machine in for repair
necessary? They may not be too happy if I say I messed it up with linux
because I didn't enable apm because I didn't want it. The only thing I
really want apm to do is autoshutoff the machine when I do halt, and maybe
allow me to suspend manually, but usually when I have it plugged in to the
wall there's no need to shut down two minutes when I'm in the middle of
reading something. I rarely ever use my laptop on battery power anyway, so
the power issue isn't even there, unless places have such high electric
bills that the machine needs to shut off when you aren't touching it, it's
hard to download files without pressing a key every few minutes, and then
it says, windows is preparing to go on standby, even when I turn power
settings off.

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

I was having problems with it in windows no matter what I do, I'm thinking
about putting it on my laptop, but am unsure of what to do in fipps to
split my partition so I have space for it. Is there a text based program
that will configure the kernel for use with what my laptop needs to have
when I get far enough to compile it? When I downloaded drivers.tgz,
root.bin, rescuedtlk.bin, and base_22.tgz for installing debian, and using
loadlin and install.bat, I got a lot of unresolved module symbols when I
ran the system, after having to mount rescue.bin as a loopback file system
and move the linux file to /target/vmlinuz, the place that the installation
system mounts the root partition, and when I booted I got the messages. I
now run kernel 2.2.15, but I had someone compile it over telnet, so I'd get
the right config settings, but I was lucky to get things up to the point of
using telnet. Now that my laptop will need different stuff, and it may not
boot without it, like pcmcia devices, the swappable flopp y and cd drive,
and the modem, can I just copy .config from my current machine to the
laptop, edit the file so where it mentions pcmcia=n put a y in it's place,
and have things going? Is there a way to autodetect what hardware I have,
as windows device manager says dell this, dell that, which doesn't give
much info, as dell wasn't anywhere to be found in a kernel config file to
enable dell laptop support, or something. I'm not real sure if the hard
drive although internal is also pcmcia or what, it probably is as far as I
know, I can't take it out easily, but what else really is in laptops.

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[Kirk Wood]

What I wonder is what do you want to do in your CMOS? I would give you
fair warning that if you goof up and write the wrong thing to the wrong
place you won't get as far as the LILO prompt. In fact, the warnings that
are in the kernal compile help say you can stop the machine from ever
booting again, though I have my doubts on that one.

Still, it may be a bit daunting.

-- 
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
------------------

Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.
		Alfred North Whitehead

Re: using /dev/nvram to alter cmos settings

[brent harding]

Hold numpad insert down and it resets the bios, you probably can disconnect
the battery on the mother board just like attackers do when they reset your
passwords on the bios, don't know about this though. I want to extend the
time my laptop waits to enter standby, or make it as long as there's serial
port activity, it won't standby. Whatever I switch in windows seems to have
no effect on what the machine actually does.
At 09:46 PM 7/3/00 -0500, you wrote:
>What I wonder is what do you want to do in your CMOS? I would give you
>fair warning that if you goof up and write the wrong thing to the wrong
>place you won't get as far as the LILO prompt. In fact, the warnings that
>are in the kernal compile help say you can stop the machine from ever
>booting again, though I have my doubts on that one.
>
>Still, it may be a bit daunting.
>
>-- 
>Kirk Wood
>Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net
>------------------
>
>Seek simplicity -- and distrust it.
>		Alfred North Whitehead
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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>