The Curent Paradigm

So these device files are real files, but they have special meaning. How does Linux decide what device files reside on a system? It simply makes all possible device files, whether you need them or not. My /dev directory contains 1411 device files alone. There is usually an executable /dev/MAKEDEV (or /sbin/MAKEDEV) which makes all the possible device files in the /dev directory. These days, all distros already come with all the device files in place.