[Linux-disciples] Recognizing a new NIC

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

Stephen R Laniel wrote:
>>Um, maybe something about block devices?  Ethernet is not a block device?
> Isn't that why there are character devices? My understanding
> is that block devices are those which can be buffered (like
> hard disks) and character devices are those which can't
> (like mice or keyboards). Some network apps (ftp, say) will
> be able to handle buffering; others (like ssh) won't. So the
> best policy is to make the device node a character device,
> and let applications decide how they'll layer buffering
> above the device layer.

I guess the problem is figuring out the level of abstraction. If you
were to send a byte to your network card, where would it go?  When you
send a raw byte to the parallel port (/dev/lp0) it just passes that data
along to the printer. Likewise for serial. But a network packet has to
"go" somewhere. It just doesn't make any sense to send raw data to the
device. That's why we have the system that allows you to send raw data
to an IP address and port instead.
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