Re: what is /.udev for ?

[Olaf Conradi <oohlaf@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:07:33 -0800 (PST), Thomas Bushnell BSG
<tb@becket.net> wrote:
> Maykel Moya <maykel.moya@icc-canada.com> writes:
> > I recently realized that I had /.dev, after that, I rm -fr it what
> > rendered my system unbootabled.
> 
> What led you to do such a thing?  The idea "I don't know what this is,
> so I should delete it" is rampant, and disastrous.

He might not have read the following passage in /etc/init.d/udev, but
an extra comment to first unmount /.dev before removing it would help.

  # /.dev is used by /sbin/MAKEDEV to access the real /dev directory.           
  # if you don't like this, remove /.dev/.                                      
  [ -d /.dev ] && mount -n --bind /dev /.dev 

I've always found the existence of ./dev a bit weird in a directory
listing of /.
I'd rather have it in /var/lib/dev, but maybe that's just me ;)

It is handy to have one around, to make it possible to for devices to
be available before udev is loaded. MAKEDEV creates them in the static
location, if one is present.

 -Olaf