On 30 May 2002 12:55:20 +0100 James Wallbank <james [at] lowtech.org> wrote: > Hi All, > > Can anyone explain to me where /dev/eth0 has disappeared to on Mandrake > 8.1+? I always was under the impression that it's a character device > file that refers to the first ethernet card - which would suggest to me > that it's essential to get connected to a LAN. It's certainly not essential to get connected to a LAN, I have never seen a /dev/eth0, ethernet devices don't need to interact with the filesystem so they don't get /dev/ entries. > However, under Mandrake 8.1 and thereafter, /dev/eth0 doesn't exist! Not > even as a link to another character device file. Somebody told me that > "Mandrake uses DevFS to communicate with the ethernet hardware using > major and minor device numbers" - but I neither know whether (a) this is > true, or (b) what it means if it is true! DevFS _doesn't_ use major and minor number, it's the old filesystem based device nodes that use major and minor numbers. DevFS is much more sensible. > I guess that the device numbers (major and minor) act as some kind of > more fundamental way to access the port in question, which /dev/eth0 > just points to, just as a host name points to an IP number. Am I right? > What does it all mean? Yes, but not for network devices as they don't need a /dev entry. Mandrake may have had one for some reason but none of my boxes do. --Andrew -- sparc sun4c stuff: http://www.lostgeneration.freeserve.co.uk/sparc PGP key for list [at] lostgeneration.freeserve.co.uk: http://www.lostgeneration.freeserve.co.uk/list.freeserve.co.uk.asc
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