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 Subject :File Types.. 2010-02-24 11:04:15 
MikeW
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Joined: 2009-06-03 13:47:46
Posts: 80
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In answer to the question below on file types.

Everything in Linux is a file...so hardware devices like a partition, /dev/sda1 is represented by a file that system can use as if it was the actual hardware device. Look in the /dev directory and you will see all of those files.

Block Devices are hard drives.

Characters Devices represent things like printers, TTY, etc. which have streaming characters.

Major numbers help the system know what a device is for example, the major number 9 is always a RAID device, the major number 2 is a floppy, and major 6 is a printer.

Minor numbers tell you which printer, printer number one is 0, the second printer is 1....remember it starts with 0. So the minor number tells you the number of devices you have with that major number.

Named pipes transfer information on the local system between applications.



Hello,

I have a few questions about Device files.

What actually are Character Devices and Block Devices? Where and How are they useful?

What are the Major and Minor Device numbers? How and where can I check them ? How are they useful?

How are the Named Pipes useful?

Thanks
Dhruva
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 Subject :Re:File Types.. 2010-03-10 11:16:28 
dhruva
Joined: 2010-02-24 07:32:26
Posts: 5
Location: 
Thank you for the answer. that helped made it clear.
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 Subject :Re:File Types.. 2010-03-10 14:25:33 
MikeW
Rookery Moderator
Joined: 2009-06-03 13:47:46
Posts: 80
Location: 
A disk file system is a way to store files on a disk, USB, DVD, netowrk, etc. There are many different file system types and different types are used by different operating systems. If you get on a Linux system and use the l option you will see that Linux can provide many different options including Microsoft formats.



It is important to understand that the features and purpose of each file system could be completely different. For example the file system you would want to use on a Flash disk could be very different from what you would want on a hard disk because the Flash disk has limited writes.

Currently Microsoft is using NTFS, New Technology file System, which is designed to enhance performance, security, reliability and disk space utilization over FAT, the file system used before. It also provides ACLS or access control lists to allow different users rights to the same file.

Linux is currently moving toward ext4 which is a file system that is designed to be a journaling system to help in rebuilding the system if there is a crash. It also has performance enhancements and the ability for much larger volumes. Here is an article on ext4:

http://beginlinux.com/server_training/8-ubuntuadmin/1255-crash-testing-ext4-on-ubuntu

In a nutshell, file systems are ways that operating systems store files, the exact file system of choice often changes as file systems store more data and are choices by the OS.
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Last Edited On: 2010-03-10 14:27:39 By MikeW for the Reason
 Subject :Re:Re:Security.. 2010-03-10 14:49:06 
dhruva
Joined: 2010-02-24 07:32:26
Posts: 5
Location: 
well I read some where that NTFS was designed taking a point out from the Linux/Unix file system. Is it right?

And what are the advantages of Hierarchical File System(HFS) and the NTFS. Also how different is the security issue on both the file systems.

MikeW Wrote on 2010-03-10 13:25:33:
A disk file system is a way to store files on a disk, USB, DVD, netowrk, etc. There are many different file system types and different types are used by different operating systems. If you get on a Linux system and use the l option you will see that Linux can provide many different options including Microsoft formats.



It is important to understand that the features and purpose of each file system could be completely different. For example the file system you would want to use on a Flash disk could be very different from what you would want on a hard disk because the Flash disk has limited writes.

Currently Microsoft is using NTFS, New Technology file System, which is designed to enhance performance, security, reliability and disk space utilization over FAT, the file system used before. It also provides ACLS or access control lists to allow different users rights to the same file.

Linux is currently moving toward ext4 which is a file system that is designed to be a journaling system to help in rebuilding the system if there is a crash. It also has performance enhancements and the ability for much larger volumes. Here is an article on ext4:

http://beginlinux.com/server_training/8-ubuntuadmin/1255-crash-testing-ext4-on-ubuntu

In a nutshell, file systems are ways that operating systems store files, the exact file system of choice often changes as file systems store more data and are choices by the OS.
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