The /dev directory is where unices keep file namespace frontends to device
drivers. For example, /dev/random is the filename the system uses to talk
to the kernel pseudo-device driver that produces random numbers when read. 
As such, /dev may be the most quinessentially unix directory, and the one
directory I'm afraid to rename. Most device drivers have these /dev
namespace names. Network interfaces such as eth0 and lo and ppp0 don't, on
Linux.

The Linux kernel normally needs to find a writeable /dev/console to boot. 
Device files are character special or block special files. They are made
mith mknod. Device special files must be created with the proper major and
minor numbers, and type. The official list of assigned device numbers for
Linux is in devices.txt in this directory, which is from the kernel
sources. 

cLIeNUX provides no MAKEDEV script, and a fairly small set of pre-made dev
files. This is so that ls /dev isn't unmanageably large. 


Copyright 2000 Rick Hohensee
This file is released for redistribution only as an intact entire 
cLIeNUX Core.

