In Linux you have various special files in /dev. These files are called device files. In the Unix world accessing hardware is different. There you have a special file which actually runs a driver which in turn accesses the hardware. The device file is an interface to the actual system component. Files under /dev also behave differently than ordinary files. Below are the most important device files listed. fd0 First Floppy Drive fd1 Second Floppy Drive hda IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the first IDE port (Master) hdb IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the first IDE port (Slave) hdc IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the second IDE port (Master) hdd IDE Hard disk / CD-ROM on the second IDE port (Slave) hda1 First partition of the first IDE hard disk hdd15 Fifteenth partition of the fourth IDE hard disk sda SCSI Hard disk with lowest SCSI ID (e.g. 0) sdb SCSI Hard disk with next higher SCSI ID (e.g. 1) sdc SCSI Hard disk with next higher SCSI ID (e.g. 2) sda1 First partition of the first SCSI hard disk sdd10 Tenth partition of the fourth SCSI hard disk sr0 SCSI CD-ROM with the lowest SCSI ID sr1 SCSI CD-ROM with the next higher SCSI ID ttyS0 Serial port 0, COM1 under MS-DOS ttyS1 Serial port 1, COM2 under MS-DOS psaux PS/2 mouse device gpmdata Pseudo device, repeater data from GPM (mouse) daemon cdrom Symbolic link to the CD-ROM drive mouse Symbolic link to the mouse device file null Everything pointed to this device will disappear zero One can endlessly read zeros out of this device The mouse can be used in both the Linux console (with gpm) and the X window environment. The two uses can be made compatible if the gpm repeater is used to allow the signal to flow to the X server as shown: mouse => /dev/psaux => gpm => /dev/gpmdata -> /dev/mouse => X /dev/ttyS0 (repeater) (symlink) /dev/ttyS1 Set the repeater protocol to be raw (in /etc/gpm.conf) while setting X to the original mouse protocol in /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4. This approach to use gpm even in X has advantages when the mouse is unplugged inadvertently. Simply restarting gpm with # /etc/init.d/gpm restart will re-connect the mouse in software without restarting X. If gpm is disabled or not installed for some reason, make sure to set X to read directly from a mouse device such as /dev/psaux. For details, refer to the 3-Button Mouse mini-Howto at /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/mini/3-Button-Mouse.gz, man gpm, /usr/share/doc/gpm/FAQ.gz, and README.mouse. For PowerPC, in /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, set the mouse device to "/dev/input/mice". Modern kernels give you the capability to emulate a three-button mouse when your mouse only has one button. Just add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf file. # 3-button mouse emulation # turn on emulation /dev/mac_hid/mouse_button_emulation = 1 # Send middle mouse button signal with the F11 key /dev/mac_hid/mouse_button2_keycode = 87 # Send right mouse button signal with the F12 key /dev/mac_hid/mouse_button3_keycode = 88 # For different keys, use showkey to tell you what the code is. The base installation for i386 using the default 2.4 kernel, including all standard packages, requires 573MB of disk space. The following table lists sizes reported by aptitude for the tasks listed in tasksel. Note that some tasks have overlapping constituents, so the total installed size for two tasks together may be less than the total obtained by adding up the numbers. Note that you will need to add the sizes listed in the table to the size of the base installation when determining the size of partitions. Most of the size listed as Installed size will end up in /usr; the size listed as Download size is (temporarily) required in /var. Task Installed size (MB) Download size (MB) Space needed to install (MB) Desktop 1392 460 1852 Web server 36 12 48 Print server 168 58 226 DNS server 2 1 3 File server 47 24 71 Mail server 10 3 13 SQL database 66 21 87 The Desktop task will install both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. If you install in a language other than English, tasksel may automatically install a localization task, if one is available for your language. Space requirements differ per language; you should allow up to 200MB in total for download and installation.