DEVFS

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DevFS is a special-purpose file system present on many UNIX-like operating systems, including FreeBSD and Linux 2.4 to 2.6.12 (though not all of these Linux systems enable it).

On all Unix systems, many I/O devices (such as disks, printers, virtual consoles and so forth) are treated by the operating system as special files. However, maintaining these special files on a conventional file system can become quite complex: this is particularly the case where arbitrary devices can be hot-swapped (installed or removed while the system is operational) such as USB devices. DevFS simplifies this problem by automatically overseeing the creation, deletion, and permission management of these files.

The Linux DevFS, written by Richard Gooch, is now deprecated in 2.6 series of the Linux kernel. [1] Its replacement is udev. It is disabled and being removed since Linux 2.6.13.

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