.TH FLASHROM 8 "June 22, 2008"
.SH NAME
flashrom \- a universal BIOS/ROM/flash programming utility
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B flashrom \fR[\fB\-rwvEVfLhR\fR] [\fB\-c\fR chipname] [\fB\-s\fR exclude_start] [\fB\-e\fR exclude_end]
         [\fB-m\fR vendor:part] [\fB-l\fR file.layout] [\fB-i\fR image_name] [file]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B flashrom
is a universal flash programming utility for DIP, PLCC, or SPI flash ROM
chips. It can be used to flash BIOS/coreboot/firmware images, for example.
.sp
(see
.B http://coreboot.org
for details on coreboot)
.SH OPTIONS
If no file is specified, then all that happens
is that flash info is dumped and the flash chip is set to writable.
.TP
.B "\-r, \-\-read"
Read flash ROM contents and save them into the given file.
.TP
.B "\-w, \-\-write"
Write file into flash ROM (default when file is specified).
.TP
.B "\-v, \-\-verify"
Verify the flash ROM contents against the given file.
.TP
.B "\-E, \-\-erase"
Erase the flash ROM device.
.TP
.B "\-V, \-\-verbose"
More verbose output.
.TP
.B "\-c, \-\-chip" <chipname>
Probe only for specified flash ROM chip.
.TP
.B "\-s, \-\-estart" <addr>
Exclude start position (obsolete).
.TP
.B "\-e, \-\-eend" <addr> 
Exclude end postion (obsolete).
.TP
.B "\-m, \-\-mainboard" <[vendor:]part>
Override mainboard settings. This option is needed for some mainboards,
see the
.B "flashrom \-\-list\-supported"
output for a list. The vendor is not required when the board name is unique.
.TP
.B "\-f, \-\-force"
Force write without checking whether the ROM image file is really meant
to be used on this board.
.sp
Note: This check only works while coreboot is running, and only for those
boards where the coreboot code supports it.
.TP
.B "\-l, \-\-layout" <layout.file>
Read ROM layout from file.
.TP
.B "\-i, \-\-image" <name>
Only flash image
.B <name>
from flash layout.
.TP
.B "\-L, \-\-list\-supported"
List the ROM chips, chipsets, and mainboards supported by flashrom.
The list of mainboards consists of those boards which need a special
ROM write-enable function for flashrom to work.
.sp
There are many other boards which will work out of the box, without such
special support in flashrom. Some of the known-good/known-bad and tested ones
are listed at
.BR http://coreboot.org/Flashrom#Supported_mainboards ,
but the list is not exhaustive, of course.
.TP
.B "\-h, \-\-help"
Show a help text and exit.
.TP
.B "\-R, \-\-version"
Show version information and exit.
.SH BUGS
Please report any bugs at
.BR http://tracker.coreboot.org/trac/coreboot/newticket ","
or on the coreboot mailing list
.RB "(" http://coreboot.org/Mailinglist ")."
.SH LICENCE
.B flashrom
is covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or later.
.SH COPYRIGHT
2000 Silicon Integrated System Corporation
.br
2003 Niki W. Waibel
.br
2004 Tyan Corp
.br
2005-2007 coresystems GmbH
.SH AUTHORS
Yinghai Lu <yinghai.lu@amd.com>
.br
Stefan Reinauer <stepan@coresystems.de>
.br
Niki W. Waibel <niki.waibel@gmx.net>
.br
some others 
.PP
This manual page was written by Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de>.
It is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL (version 2 or later).