Red Hat® Linux® 7 Unleashed

Summary

This chapter introduced character and block devices, filesystem administration, and gave an overview of the hardware that can be accessed via the special files in the /dev directory.

One of the difficulties in writing a chapter like this is that things are constantly changing. For example, soon we will be using ext3 instead of ext2 for the standard filesystem type. The kernel maintainers and distribution maintainers are trying to keep things in line enough so that ordinary computer users can use this stuff, but at the same time allow flexibility so that new and improved "stuff" can be designed. Many of the areas that the Linux community has focused on throughout the years have fallen under the section devices and filesystems. Therefore, ...