Random manpage improvements and updates
Corresponding to flashrom svn r1387.
Signed-off-by: Uwe Hermann <uwe@hermann-uwe.de>
Acked-by: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net>
diff --git a/flashrom.8 b/flashrom.8
index 2f5107b..2814d8c 100644
--- a/flashrom.8
+++ b/flashrom.8
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-.TH FLASHROM 8 "Jun 14, 2011"
+.TH FLASHROM 8 "Jul 25, 2011"
.SH NAME
flashrom \- detect, read, write, verify and erase flash chips
.SH SYNOPSIS
@@ -12,13 +12,14 @@
.B flashrom
is a utility for detecting, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash
chips. It's often used to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware images in-system
-using a supported mainboard, but it also supports flashing of network cards
-(NICs), SATA controller cards, and other external devices which can program
-flash chips.
+using a supported mainboard. However, it also supports various external
+PCI/USB/parallel-port/serial-port based devices which can program flash chips,
+including some network cards (NICs), SATA/IDE controller cards, graphics cards,
+the Bus Pirate device, various FTDI FT2232/FT4232H based USB devices, and more.
.PP
It supports a wide range of DIP32, PLCC32, DIP8, SO8/SOIC8, TSOP32, TSOP40,
-and TSOP48 chips, which use various protocols such as LPC, FWH, parallel flash,
-or SPI.
+TSOP48, and BGA chips, which use various protocols such as LPC, FWH,
+parallel flash, or SPI.
.SH OPTIONS
.B IMPORTANT:
Please note that the command line interface for flashrom will change before
@@ -30,7 +31,7 @@
or no operation.
If no operation is specified, flashrom will only probe for flash chips. It is
recommended that if you try flashrom the first time on a system, you run it
-in probe only mode and check the output. Also you are advised to make a
+in probe-only mode and check the output. Also you are advised to make a
backup of your current ROM contents with
.B \-r
before you try to write a new image.
@@ -38,6 +39,7 @@
.B "\-r, \-\-read <file>"
Read flash ROM contents and save them into the given
.BR <file> .
+If the file already exists, it will be overwritten.
.TP
.B "\-w, \-\-write <file>"
Write
@@ -144,7 +146,8 @@
from flash layout.
.TP
.B "\-L, \-\-list\-supported"
-List the flash chips, chipsets, mainboards, and PCI card "programmers"
+List the flash chips, chipsets, mainboards, and external programmers
+(including PCI, USB, parallel port, and serial port based devices)
supported by flashrom.
.sp
There are many unlisted boards which will work out of the box, without
@@ -160,8 +163,9 @@
Same as
.BR \-\-list\-supported ,
but outputs the supported hardware in MediaWiki syntax, so that it can be
-easily pasted into the wiki page at http://www.flashrom.org/. Please note
-that MediaWiki output is not compiled in by default.
+easily pasted into the wiki page at
+.BR http://www.flashrom.org/ .
+Please note that MediaWiki output is not compiled in by default.
.TP
.B "\-p, \-\-programmer <name>[:parameter[,parameter[,parameter]]]"
Specify the programmer device. Currently supported are:
@@ -489,7 +493,7 @@
four. Make sure to not forget the "0x" prefix for hexadecimal port addresses.
.sp
More information about the hardware is available at
-http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/spipgm.htm
+.BR http://rayer.ic.cz/elektro/spipgm.htm .
.TP
.BR "ogp_spi " programmer
The flash ROM chip to access must be specified with the
@@ -517,7 +521,7 @@
section above.
.sp
More information about the hardware is available at
-http://wiki.opengraphics.org
+.BR http://wiki.opengraphics.org .
.SH EXIT STATUS
flashrom exits with 0 on success, 1 on most failures but with 2 if /dev/mem
(/dev/xsvc on Solaris) can not be opened and with 3 if a call to mmap() fails.
@@ -571,8 +575,10 @@
needs PCI configuration space read access and raw memory access.
.sp
On OpenBSD, you can obtain raw access permission by setting
-securelevel=-1 in /etc/rc.securelevel and rebooting, or rebooting into single
-user mode.
+.B "securelevel=-1"
+in
+.B "/etc/rc.securelevel"
+and rebooting, or rebooting into single user mode.
.SH BUGS
Please report any bugs at
.sp
@@ -590,6 +596,10 @@
backup. This is caused by the embedded controller (EC) present in many laptops,
which interacts badly with any flash attempts. This is a hardware limitation
and flashrom will attempt to detect it and abort immediately for safety reasons.
+.sp
+More information about flashrom on laptops is available from
+.sp
+.B " http://www.flashrom.org/Laptops"
.SH LICENSE
.B flashrom
is covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. Some files are