Generic Device Names

Some devices with a compatible property use a generic device name as the value for the name property. Generic device names describe the function of a device without actually identifying a specific driver for the device. For example, a SCSI host bus adapter may have a generic device name of scsi. An Ethernet device may have a generic device name of ethernet.

The compatible property allows the system to determine alternate driver names (like glm for scsi HBA device drivers or hme for ethernet device drivers) for devices with a generic device name.

Devices with generic device names must supply a compatible property.

For a complete description of generic device names, see the IEEE 1275 Open Firmware Boot Standard.

Figure 1-4 and Figure 1-5 show two device nodes: one node uses a specific device name and the other uses a generic device name.

For the device node with a specific device name, the driver binding name SUNW,ffb is the same name as the device node name.

Figure 1-4 Specific Driver Node Binding

For the device node with the generic device name display, the driver binding name SUNW,ffb is the first name on the compatible property driver list that matches a driver on the system driver list. In this case, display is a generic device name for frame buffers.

Figure 1-5 Generic Driver Node Binding