Re: /dev/zero

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Author: Mike
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: /dev/zero
Funny stuff!

On Sunday 19 February 2006 11:59 pm, Judd Pickell wrote:
> And if you get a hold of someone's linux box you can really freak them out
> by mapping their keyboard input into the mixer. Nothing funnier than seeing
> people jump five feet when they start to type and all they ear is a very
> loud noise.. :)
>
> Okay... Maybe that is just a bit too mean.. ;)
>
> Sincerely,
> Judd Pickell
>
> On 2/19/06, Mike Garfias <> wrote:
> > Its not a file, you don't open it. It is a device that spits out zeros
> > (or
> > random).
> >
> > Use dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/test bs=512 count=1024
> > then open /tmp/test with your favorite editor.
> >
> > You need to realize that things under /dev/ are NOT ordinary files. But
> > unix
> > is such that it represents everything as a file.
> >
> > There are four types of files:
> > Ordinary Files (what you think of as a "file")
> > Directories (yes, they're files too)
> > Special Files (IO devices, terminals - think ttys, etc)
> > Links - Symlinks & hardlinks (yes, they're "files" too!)
> >
> > You can't just treat them all as files, they are different. But, there
> > are
> > some very good reasons for representing them as files. For instance, if
> > you
> > wanted to listen to a wav, you could cat some.wav > /dev/mixer to send it
> > to
> > the mixer device. Same with a printer cat some.file.txt > /dev/lp/0 -
> > you might not get what you expect, but it does work.
> >
> > Mike spoke forth with the blessed manuscript:
> > > The same thing happened with /dev/random
> > > what should I open it with?
> > >
> > > On Sunday 19 February 2006 06:44 pm, Gerard Snitselaar wrote:
> > > > This piqued my interest: "What ?does this look
> > > >
> > > > > like," I thought. So I typed 'jpico /dev/zero' and guess what
> >
> > happened!
> >
> > > > > NOTHING.
> > > > >
> > > > > The enter went to the next line but nothing happened. No pretty
> >
> > colors
> >
> > > > > and prompt.
> > >
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