Devices

  • In Unix systems every device is described by a device file. All the device files are in the /dev directory branch

  • Types
    character devices, handling data byte by byte
    block devices, handling data by blocks (sector) of byte

  • Some devices

    device

    description

    /dev/fd0

    first floppy device

    /dev/fd0u1440

    first floppy disk

    /dev/hda1

    first partition in the first IDE/EIDE hard disk

    /dev/hdb

    second IDE/EIDE hard disk

    /dev/sda

    first SCSI disk

    /dev/sda1

    first partition of the first SCSI disk

    /dev/lp0

    first GNU/Linux paralell port

    /dev/lp1

    second GNU/Linux paralell port

    /dev/ttyS0

    serial port

  • Names

    /dev/fd0H1440 Red Hat distribution;
    /dev/fd0u1440 Slackware, Debian and SuSE distributions.