[newbie] Treating Devices as Files
My earlier post asked about how much the /dev directory files were like regular files. Specifically, I talked about checking a CD that had been burned with the ISO image using the md5sum file provided on the mirrors. It doesn't work. I don't know what a .iso file is, exactly, that is, if it's a file system that can be burned onto the CD bit for bit, and maybe even mounted under Linux (I never thought to try this while I had the ISO image, and it's gone now for space reasons). My experiment involved two tests: md5sum --check=md5sum (the filename in the input file was changed to /dev/cdrom instead of mandrake60-1.iso) md5sum /dev/cdrom md5sum.out Neither of which worked. Unfortunately, I don't have the error message with me now. If anybody's interested, I can post it Monday when I get back to my computer (this is being written on a different computer). Ah, well. It was a neat idea- or so I thought. -Matt Stegman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[newbie] Treating Devices as Files
I've a question about the /dev directory, or more accurately, the representation of hardware as files on Unix-style operating systems. In the README file on the Mandrake CD under /images, one way to write the boot disk images to a floppy is to use the "dd" command, which, to my understanding, does little more than copy a file. Am I correct when I say that what you're doing is copying the .img file to the file representing the floppy? If so, then my question is, to what extent are devices treated like files? More specifically, can I check a CD I burned using the md5sum output provided in the /ISO directory of my local mirror? If I change the filename (in the md5sum file) to /dev/cdrom, can I then run md5sum with that file [md5sum, not /dev/cdrom] as input and have it check the CD (instead of the image)? Thank you all, who take the time to read and answer this. -Matt Stegman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
