On Linux, everything is a file. At first glance you might shrug—Windows also has files, right? But the Linux idea goes further: not only documents, photos, and executables are files, but devices themselves are represented as files.
Your SSD? It shows up as a file.
Your GPU? File.
Your sound card? Also a file.
There isn’t a hidden bridge of magic between software and hardware. Instead, Linux exposes devices as simple entries in the filesystem. This makes communication with hardware transparent—plain as the sun.
Where are these files? /dev and /proc
If you want to see what devices exist on your system, take a look at the /dev directory. In there you’ll find files that represent disks, partitions, terminals, random number generators, and more. For example:
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/dev/sda→ your main hard drive or SSD -
/dev/tty0→ a virtual console (terminal) -
/dev/null→ the famous “black hole” where unwanted output disappears
And it doesn’t stop at physical devices. Linux also exposes information about the system itself through virtual filesystems. A classic example is /proc/cpuinfo, which is just a text file giving you details about your CPU. There’s no “Hardware Manager” like in Windows Control Panel—just files you can open and read.
Why is this powerful?
This design makes Linux both flexible and scriptable. Because everything is a file, you can interact with devices using the same simple tools you use for normal files:
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Want to copy data to a USB stick? You can write directly to its device file.
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Want to check what’s happening in memory or with the CPU? Read the right file in
/proc. -
Need randomness for encryption? Read bytes straight from
/dev/random.
The concept might feel strange at first—your hard drive being a “file” sounds contradictory—but it unifies the system. Whether you’re dealing with a text document, a block device, or a piece of system information, it’s all handled through the same interface: files and streams.
In conclusion
On Linux, everything boils down to files. Devices are files, system information is files, even inter-process communication happens through file-like objects. Once you embrace this model, Linux stops looking like a mysterious box and starts making sense—it’s all just files.