device file: To make some things in Linux easier, Linux treats many things as files which one might normally not consider files. These include hardware "devices" (and processes, see proc). A device file is a file that allows access to a hardware device -- you can read from it and write to it much like reading or writing to a file.

Aside: AFAIK, this ability to treat a device as a file has existed in Linux for a long time. However, it sounds like something new is coming into existence, the devfs -- see the second link below. It seems like this is a new approach, but still keeping the concept of device files. (I just skimmed the beginning of the FAQ.

See:

• "Special Files" heading on http://www.isu.edu/departments/comcom/unix/workshop/fstour.html
• http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/docs/devfs.html

Contributors

• RandyKramer - 31 Jan 2002
• <If you edit this page, add your name here, move this to the next line>