Linux File System 04 - dev directory

/dev - This is a very interesting directory that highlights one important
characteristic of the Linux filesystem - everything is a file or a
directory. Look through this directory and you should see hda1, hda2 etc,
which represent the various partitions on the first master drive of the
system. /dev/cdrom and /dev/fd0 represent your CDROM drive and your floppy
drive. This may seem strange but it will make sense if you compare the
characteristics of files to that of your hardware. Both can be read from
and written to. Take /dev/dsp, for instance. This file represents your
speaker device. So any data written to this file will be re-directed to
your speaker. Try 'cat /etc/lilo.conf > /dev/dsp' and you should hear some
sound on the speaker. That's the sound of your lilo.conf file! Similarly,
sending data to and reading from /dev/ttyS0 ( COM 1 ) will allow you to
communicate with a device attached there - your modem.