Devices and device files

Almost all of your hardware/peripherals/devices under Linux are accessed through the use of their corresponding special device file. These files are found in the /dev directory:

$ ls -l /dev | less           page through the long listing of /dev
  

As a small sample, here are some of the most common devices you might be working with (these names are not absolutely guaranteed, so check your system documentation first):

/dev/ttyS0

first serial port

/dev/ttyS1

second serial port

/dev/lp0

first parallel port

/dev/hda

first IDE hard drive

/dev/sda

first SCSI hard drive

/dev/cdrom

IDE CD-ROM drive

/dev/scd0

SCSI CD-ROM drive