2 # Character device configuration
5 menu "Character devices"
7 source "drivers/tty/Kconfig"
10 bool "Memory device driver"
13 The memory driver provides two character devices, mem and kmem, which
14 provide access to the system's memory. The mem device is a view of
15 physical memory, and each byte in the device corresponds to the
16 matching physical address. The kmem device is the same as mem, but
17 the addresses correspond to the kernel's virtual address space rather
18 than physical memory. These devices are standard parts of a Linux
19 system and most users should say Y here. You might say N if very
20 security conscience or memory is tight.
23 bool "/dev/kmem virtual device support"
26 Say Y here if you want to support the /dev/kmem device. The
27 /dev/kmem device is rarely used, but can be used for certain
28 kind of kernel debugging operations.
29 When in doubt, say "N".
32 bool "Stallion multiport serial support"
33 depends on SERIAL_NONSTANDARD
35 Stallion cards give you many serial ports. You would need something
36 like this to connect more than two modems to your Linux box, for
37 instance in order to become a dial-in server. If you say Y here,
38 you will be asked for your specific card model in the next
39 questions. Make sure to read <file:Documentation/serial/stallion.txt>
40 in this case. If you have never heard about all this, it's safe to
44 bool "SGI Altix system controller communication support"
45 depends on (IA64_SGI_SN2 || IA64_GENERIC)
47 If you have an SGI Altix and you want to enable system
48 controller communication from user space (you want this!),
49 say Y. Otherwise, say N.
52 bool "SGI TIO CX driver support"
53 depends on (IA64_SGI_SN2 || IA64_GENERIC)
55 If you have an SGI Altix and you have fpga devices attached
56 to your TIO, say Y here, otherwise say N.
59 tristate "SGI FPGA Core Services driver support"
62 If you have an SGI Altix with an attached SABrick
63 say Y or M here, otherwise say N.
65 source "drivers/tty/serial/Kconfig"
68 bool "TTY driver to output user messages via printk"
72 If you say Y here, the support for writing user messages (i.e.
73 console messages) via printk is available.
75 The feature is useful to inline user messages with kernel
77 In order to use this feature, you should output user messages
78 to /dev/ttyprintk or redirect console to this TTY.
83 tristate 'Total Impact briQ front panel driver'
86 The briQ is a small footprint CHRP computer with a frontpanel VFD, a
87 tristate led and two switches. It is the size of a CDROM drive.
89 If you have such one and want anything showing on the VFD then you
92 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
93 module will be called briq_panel.
95 It's safe to say N here.
98 tristate "Blackfin On-Chip OTP Memory Support"
99 depends on BLACKFIN && (BF51x || BF52x || BF54x)
102 If you say Y here, you will get support for a character device
103 interface into the One Time Programmable memory pages that are
104 stored on the Blackfin processor. This will not get you access
105 to the secure memory pages however. You will need to write your
106 own secure code and reader for that.
108 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the module
109 will be called bfin-otp.
111 If unsure, it is safe to say Y.
113 config BFIN_OTP_WRITE_ENABLE
114 bool "Enable writing support of OTP pages"
118 If you say Y here, you will enable support for writing of the
119 OTP pages. This is dangerous by nature as you can only program
120 the pages once, so only enable this option when you actually
121 need it so as to not inadvertently clobber data.
126 tristate "Parallel printer support"
129 If you intend to attach a printer to the parallel port of your Linux
130 box (as opposed to using a serial printer; if the connector at the
131 printer has 9 or 25 holes ["female"], then it's serial), say Y.
132 Also read the Printing-HOWTO, available from
133 <http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto>.
135 It is possible to share one parallel port among several devices
136 (e.g. printer and ZIP drive) and it is safe to compile the
137 corresponding drivers into the kernel.
139 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here and read
140 <file:Documentation/parport.txt>. The module will be called lp.
142 If you have several parallel ports, you can specify which ports to
143 use with the "lp" kernel command line option. (Try "man bootparam"
144 or see the documentation of your boot loader (lilo or loadlin) about
145 how to pass options to the kernel at boot time.) The syntax of the
146 "lp" command line option can be found in <file:drivers/char/lp.c>.
148 If you have more than 8 printers, you need to increase the LP_NO
149 macro in lp.c and the PARPORT_MAX macro in parport.h.
152 bool "Support for console on line printer"
155 If you want kernel messages to be printed out as they occur, you
156 can have a console on the printer. This option adds support for
157 doing that; to actually get it to happen you need to pass the
158 option "console=lp0" to the kernel at boot time.
160 If the printer is out of paper (or off, or unplugged, or too
161 busy..) the kernel will stall until the printer is ready again.
162 By defining CONSOLE_LP_STRICT to 0 (at your own risk) you
163 can make the kernel continue when this happens,
164 but it'll lose the kernel messages.
169 tristate "Support for user-space parallel port device drivers"
172 Saying Y to this adds support for /dev/parport device nodes. This
173 is needed for programs that want portable access to the parallel
174 port, for instance deviceid (which displays Plug-and-Play device
177 This is the parallel port equivalent of SCSI generic support (sg).
178 It is safe to say N to this -- it is not needed for normal printing
179 or parallel port CD-ROM/disk support.
181 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
182 module will be called ppdev.
186 source "drivers/tty/hvc/Kconfig"
188 config VIRTIO_CONSOLE
189 tristate "Virtio console"
193 Virtio console for use with lguest and other hypervisors.
195 Also serves as a general-purpose serial device for data
196 transfer between the guest and host. Character devices at
197 /dev/vportNpn will be created when corresponding ports are
198 found, where N is the device number and n is the port number
199 within that device. If specified by the host, a sysfs
200 attribute called 'name' will be populated with a name for
201 the port which can be used by udev scripts to create a
202 symlink to the device.
205 tristate "IBM POWER Barrier Synchronization Register support"
206 depends on PPC_PSERIES
208 This devices exposes a hardware mechanism for fast synchronization
209 of threads across a large system which avoids bouncing a cacheline
210 between several cores on a system
212 source "drivers/char/ipmi/Kconfig"
215 tristate "NetWinder thermometer support"
216 depends on ARCH_NETWINDER
218 Say Y here to include support for the thermal management hardware
219 found in the NetWinder. This driver allows the user to control the
220 temperature set points and to read the current temperature.
222 It is also possible to say M here to build it as a module (ds1620)
223 It is recommended to be used on a NetWinder, but it is not a
227 tristate "NetWinder Button"
228 depends on ARCH_NETWINDER
230 If you say Y here and create a character device node /dev/nwbutton
231 with major and minor numbers 10 and 158 ("man mknod"), then every
232 time the orange button is pressed a number of times, the number of
233 times the button was pressed will be written to that device.
235 This is most useful for applications, as yet unwritten, which
236 perform actions based on how many times the button is pressed in a
239 Do not hold the button down for too long, as the driver does not
240 alter the behaviour of the hardware reset circuitry attached to the
241 button; it will still execute a hard reset if the button is held
242 down for longer than approximately five seconds.
244 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
245 module will be called nwbutton.
247 Most people will answer Y to this question and "Reboot Using Button"
248 below to be able to initiate a system shutdown from the button.
250 config NWBUTTON_REBOOT
251 bool "Reboot Using Button"
254 If you say Y here, then you will be able to initiate a system
255 shutdown and reboot by pressing the orange button a number of times.
256 The number of presses to initiate the shutdown is two by default,
257 but this can be altered by modifying the value of NUM_PRESSES_REBOOT
258 in nwbutton.h and recompiling the driver or, if you compile the
259 driver as a module, you can specify the number of presses at load
260 time with "insmod button reboot_count=<something>".
263 tristate "NetWinder flash support"
264 depends on ARCH_NETWINDER
266 If you say Y here and create a character device /dev/flash with
267 major 10 and minor 160 you can manipulate the flash ROM containing
268 the NetWinder firmware. Be careful as accidentally overwriting the
269 flash contents can render your computer unbootable. On no account
270 allow random users access to this device. :-)
272 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
273 module will be called nwflash.
275 If you're not sure, say N.
277 source "drivers/char/hw_random/Kconfig"
280 tristate "/dev/nvram support"
281 depends on ATARI || X86 || (ARM && RTC_DRV_CMOS) || GENERIC_NVRAM
283 If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/nvram
284 with major number 10 and minor number 144 using mknod ("man mknod"),
285 you get read and write access to the extra bytes of non-volatile
286 memory in the real time clock (RTC), which is contained in every PC
287 and most Ataris. The actual number of bytes varies, depending on the
288 nvram in the system, but is usually 114 (128-14 for the RTC).
290 This memory is conventionally called "CMOS RAM" on PCs and "NVRAM"
291 on Ataris. /dev/nvram may be used to view settings there, or to
292 change them (with some utility). It could also be used to frequently
293 save a few bits of very important data that may not be lost over
294 power-off and for which writing to disk is too insecure. Note
295 however that most NVRAM space in a PC belongs to the BIOS and you
296 should NEVER idly tamper with it. See Ralf Brown's interrupt list
297 for a guide to the use of CMOS bytes by your BIOS.
299 On Atari machines, /dev/nvram is always configured and does not need
302 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
303 module will be called nvram.
306 # These legacy RTC drivers just cause too many conflicts with the generic
307 # RTC framework ... let's not even try to coexist any more.
312 tristate "Enhanced Real Time Clock Support (legacy PC RTC driver)"
313 depends on !PPC && !PARISC && !IA64 && !M68K && !SPARC && !FRV \
314 && !ARM && !SUPERH && !S390 && !AVR32 && !BLACKFIN
316 If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/rtc with
317 major number 10 and minor number 135 using mknod ("man mknod"), you
318 will get access to the real time clock (or hardware clock) built
321 Every PC has such a clock built in. It can be used to generate
322 signals from as low as 1Hz up to 8192Hz, and can also be used
323 as a 24 hour alarm. It reports status information via the file
324 /proc/driver/rtc and its behaviour is set by various ioctls on
327 If you run Linux on a multiprocessor machine and said Y to
328 "Symmetric Multi Processing" above, you should say Y here to read
329 and set the RTC in an SMP compatible fashion.
331 If you think you have a use for such a device (such as periodic data
332 sampling), then say Y here, and read <file:Documentation/rtc.txt>
335 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
336 module will be called rtc.
339 tristate "Enhanced Real Time Clock Support"
340 depends on SPARC32 && PCI
342 If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/rtc with
343 major number 10 and minor number 135 using mknod ("man mknod"), you
344 will get access to the real time clock (or hardware clock) built
347 Every PC has such a clock built in. It can be used to generate
348 signals from as low as 1Hz up to 8192Hz, and can also be used
349 as a 24 hour alarm. It reports status information via the file
350 /proc/driver/rtc and its behaviour is set by various ioctls on
353 If you think you have a use for such a device (such as periodic data
354 sampling), then say Y here, and read <file:Documentation/rtc.txt>
357 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
358 module will be called js-rtc.
361 tristate "Generic /dev/rtc emulation"
362 depends on RTC!=y && !IA64 && !ARM && !M32R && !MIPS && !SPARC && !FRV && !S390 && !SUPERH && !AVR32 && !BLACKFIN
364 If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/rtc with
365 major number 10 and minor number 135 using mknod ("man mknod"), you
366 will get access to the real time clock (or hardware clock) built
369 It reports status information via the file /proc/driver/rtc and its
370 behaviour is set by various ioctls on /dev/rtc. If you enable the
371 "extended RTC operation" below it will also provide an emulation
372 for RTC_UIE which is required by some programs and may improve
373 precision in some cases.
375 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
376 module will be called genrtc.
379 bool "Extended RTC operation"
382 Provides an emulation for RTC_UIE which is required by some programs
383 and may improve precision of the generic RTC support in some cases.
386 bool "EFI Real Time Clock Services"
390 tristate "DS1302 RTC support"
391 depends on M32R && (PLAT_M32700UT || PLAT_OPSPUT)
393 If you say Y here and create a character special file /dev/rtc with
394 major number 121 and minor number 0 using mknod ("man mknod"), you
395 will get access to the real time clock (or hardware clock) built
401 tristate "Double Talk PC internal speech card support"
404 This driver is for the DoubleTalk PC, a speech synthesizer
405 manufactured by RC Systems (<http://www.rcsys.com/>). It is also
406 called the `internal DoubleTalk'.
408 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
409 module will be called dtlk.
412 tristate "Xilinx HWICAP Support"
413 depends on XILINX_VIRTEX || MICROBLAZE
415 This option enables support for Xilinx Internal Configuration
416 Access Port (ICAP) driver. The ICAP is used on Xilinx Virtex
417 FPGA platforms to partially reconfigure the FPGA at runtime.
422 tristate "Siemens R3964 line discipline"
424 This driver allows synchronous communication with devices using the
425 Siemens R3964 packet protocol. Unless you are dealing with special
426 hardware like PLCs, you are unlikely to need this.
428 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
429 module will be called n_r3964.
434 tristate "Applicom intelligent fieldbus card support"
437 This driver provides the kernel-side support for the intelligent
438 fieldbus cards made by Applicom International. More information
439 about these cards can be found on the WWW at the address
440 <http://www.applicom-int.com/>, or by email from David Woodhouse
441 <dwmw2@infradead.org>.
443 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
444 module will be called applicom.
449 tristate "Sony Vaio Programmable I/O Control Device support (EXPERIMENTAL)"
450 depends on EXPERIMENTAL && X86 && PCI && INPUT && !64BIT
452 This driver enables access to the Sony Programmable I/O Control
453 Device which can be found in many (all ?) Sony Vaio laptops.
455 If you have one of those laptops, read
456 <file:Documentation/laptops/sonypi.txt>, and say Y or M here.
458 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
459 module will be called sonypi.
462 tristate "TANBAC TB0219 GPIO support"
463 depends on TANBAC_TB022X
466 source "drivers/char/pcmcia/Kconfig"
469 tristate "ACP Modem (Mwave) support"
473 The ACP modem (Mwave) for Linux is a WinModem. It is composed of a
474 kernel driver and a user level application. Together these components
475 support direct attachment to public switched telephone networks (PSTNs)
476 and support selected world wide countries.
478 This version of the ACP Modem driver supports the IBM Thinkpad 600E,
479 600, and 770 that include on board ACP modem hardware.
481 The modem also supports the standard communications port interface
482 (ttySx) and is compatible with the Hayes AT Command Set.
484 The user level application needed to use this driver can be found at
485 the IBM Linux Technology Center (LTC) web site:
486 <http://www.ibm.com/linux/ltc/>.
488 If you own one of the above IBM Thinkpads which has the Mwave chipset
491 To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the
492 module will be called mwave.
495 tristate "NatSemi SCx200 GPIO Support"
499 Give userspace access to the GPIO pins on the National
500 Semiconductor SCx200 processors.
502 If compiled as a module, it will be called scx200_gpio.
505 tristate "NatSemi PC8736x GPIO Support"
507 default SCx200_GPIO # mostly N
508 select NSC_GPIO # needed for support routines
510 Give userspace access to the GPIO pins on the National
511 Semiconductor PC-8736x (x=[03456]) SuperIO chip. The chip
512 has multiple functional units, inc several managed by
513 hwmon/pc87360 driver. Tested with PC-87366
515 If compiled as a module, it will be called pc8736x_gpio.
518 tristate "NatSemi Base GPIO Support"
520 # selected by SCx200_GPIO and PC8736x_GPIO
521 # what about 2 selectors differing: m != y
523 Common support used (and needed) by scx200_gpio and
524 pc8736x_gpio drivers. If those drivers are built as
525 modules, this one will be too, named nsc_gpio
528 tristate "RAW driver (/dev/raw/rawN)"
531 The raw driver permits block devices to be bound to /dev/raw/rawN.
532 Once bound, I/O against /dev/raw/rawN uses efficient zero-copy I/O.
533 See the raw(8) manpage for more details.
535 Applications should preferably open the device (eg /dev/hda1)
536 with the O_DIRECT flag.
539 int "Maximum number of RAW devices to support (1-65536)"
540 depends on RAW_DRIVER
543 The maximum number of RAW devices that are supported.
544 Default is 256. Increase this number in case you need lots of
548 bool "HPET - High Precision Event Timer" if (X86 || IA64)
552 If you say Y here, you will have a miscdevice named "/dev/hpet/". Each
553 open selects one of the timers supported by the HPET. The timers are
554 non-periodic and/or periodic.
557 bool "Allow mmap of HPET"
561 If you say Y here, user applications will be able to mmap
564 In some hardware implementations, the page containing HPET
565 registers may also contain other things that shouldn't be
566 exposed to the user. If this applies to your hardware,
569 config HANGCHECK_TIMER
570 tristate "Hangcheck timer"
571 depends on X86 || IA64 || PPC64 || S390
573 The hangcheck-timer module detects when the system has gone
574 out to lunch past a certain margin. It can reboot the system
575 or merely print a warning.
578 tristate "MMTIMER Memory mapped RTC for SGI Altix"
579 depends on IA64_GENERIC || IA64_SGI_SN2
582 The mmtimer device allows direct userspace access to the
586 tristate "UV_MMTIMER Memory mapped RTC for SGI UV"
590 The uv_mmtimer device allows direct userspace access to the
593 source "drivers/char/tpm/Kconfig"
596 tristate "Telecom clock driver for ATCA SBC"
597 depends on EXPERIMENTAL && X86
600 The telecom clock device is specific to the MPCBL0010 and MPCBL0050
601 ATCA computers and allows direct userspace access to the
602 configuration of the telecom clock configuration settings. This
603 device is used for hardware synchronization across the ATCA backplane
604 fabric. Upon loading, the driver exports a sysfs directory,
605 /sys/devices/platform/telco_clock, with a number of files for
606 controlling the behavior of this hardware.
611 depends on ISA || PCI
615 tristate "DCC tty driver"
618 source "drivers/s390/char/Kconfig"
621 tristate "Log panic/oops to a RAM buffer"
625 This enables panic and oops messages to be logged to a circular
626 buffer in RAM where it can be read back at some later point.
629 bool "Enable device interface for some SMD packet ports"
633 Enables userspace clients to read and write to some packet SMD
634 ports via device interface for MSM chipset.