Advanced Filesystems
Since files are such an integral part of any Unix-like operating system various non-typical files exist as well. And while an application developer you might not ever need to touch them, this book would be incomplete without providing an overview.
There’s block devices, which are devices resembling some form of disk.
Classical disks:
- /dev/hdX
- /dev/sdX
- /dev/nvmeN
Where X and N are alpabetical or numerical indices of the respective disks, such as /dev/sda or /dev/nvme0.
Partitions, that look just like disks, but with an additional digit or character appended, such as /dev/sda0, for the first partition on the first drive.
Special “software devices”. These range from /dev/null, which you might have seen output to be piped to in the form of somecommand > /dev/null to /dev/random and /dev/urandom, which blockingly, and non-blockingly provide you with random bytes. This is where the programming language of your choice most likely will retrieve its...
