> /dev exists to support a mapping between device names (eg, hda1) and
> major/minor number pairs (eg, (3,1).)
> If the names in /dev are generated directly by the kernel, like /proc
> is, this problem disappears.
The existance of /dev as a real, rather than a virtual file system allows
device permissions to be set, and remain set across reboots. I must admit
that I think the idea of a virtual /dev does have an attractive eligance,
however, I have never seen any proposal which would fix the device
permission problem.
Jim