Overview

The device filesystem is a hotly debated feature that many people think Linux needs to be a modern operating system. The basic idea is the /dev filesystem should be more like the /proc filesystem. Device files are not created "by default" en masse, but on the fly, and only when needed. This greatly reduces the number of device files residing on /dev and eliminates the need to use the antiquated concept of major and minor numbers.

Devfs for Linux was written by Richard Gooch and has actually been around since kernel 2.3.46. So far, no distros have shipped with devfs enabled.