diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml index 80cccea437..a9f29b71f8 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ <!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project - $FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml,v 1.45 2001/09/08 00:12:38 murray Exp $ + $FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/basics/chapter.sgml,v 1.46 2001/09/13 00:05:59 chern Exp $ --> <chapter id="basics"> @@ -1257,6 +1257,59 @@ Swap: 256M Total, 38M Used, 217M Free, 15% Inuse will save you much more time in the long run.</para> </sect1> + <sect1> + <title>Devices and Device Nodes</title> + + <para>A device is a term used mostly for hardware-related + activities in a system, including disks, printers, graphics + cards, and keyboards. When FreeBSD boots, the majority + of what FreeBSD displays are devices being detected. + You can look through the boot messages again by viewing + <filename>/var/run/dmesg.boot</filename>.</para> + + <para>For example, <devicename>acd0</devicename> is the + first IDE CDROM drive, while <devicename>kbd0</devicename> + represents the keyboard.</para> + + <para>Most of these devices in a Unix operating system must be + accessed through a special file called device nodes, which are + located in the <filename>/dev</filename> directory.</para> + + <sect2> + <title>Creating Device Nodes</title> + <para>When adding a new device to your system, or compiling + in support for additional devices, a device driver + often-times needs to be created.</para> + + <sect3> + <title>MAKEDEV Script</title> + <para>On systems without DEVFS, device nodes are created + using the &man.MAKEDEV.8; script as shown below:</para> + + <screen>&prompt.root; cd /dev +&prompt.root; sh MAKEDEV ad1 + </screen> + + <para>This example would make the proper device nodes + for the second IDE drive when installed.</para> + </sect3> + + <sect3> + <title>devfs (Device File System)</title> + + <para> The device file system, or devfs, provides access to + kernel's device namespace in the global filesystem namespace. + Instead of having to create and modify device nodes, + devfs maintains this particular filesystem for you.</para> + + <para>See the &man.devfs.5; man page for more + information.</para> + + <para>devfs is used by default in FreeBSD 5.0.</para> + </sect3> + </sect2> + </sect1> + <sect1> <title>For More Information...</title>