this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I'm currently backing up my /dev folder to my unlimited cloud storage. The backup of the file
/dev/random
is running since two weeks.That's silly. You should compress it before uploading.
No wonder. That file is super slow to transfer for some reason. but wait till you get to /dev/urandom. That file hat TBs to transfer at whatever pipe you can throw at it...
Cool, so I learned something new today. Don't run
cat /dev/random
Why not try /dev/urandom?
😹
Ya know, if not for the other person's comment, I might have been gullible enough to try this...
I’m guessing this is a joke, right?
/dev/random and other "files" in /dev are not really files, they are interfaces which van be used to interact with virtual or hardware devices. /dev/random spits out cryptographically secure random data. Another example is /dev/zero, which spits out only zero bytes.
Both are infinite.
Not all "files" in /dev are infinite, for example hard drives can (depending on which technology they use) be accessed under /dev/sda /dev/sdb and so on.
I’m aware of that. I was quite sure the author was joking, with the slightest bit of concern of them actually making the mistake.