[COLUG] Naming Convention for Physical Serial Ports

[Rob Funk]

jep200404 wrote:
> Is there a naming convention for ttys that distinguishes physical
> serial ports from consoles and virtual stuff?
>
> E.g., are /dev/tty[A-Z]* for physical serial ports and
> other /dev/tty* for other stuff?

There have been a lot of historical conventions in Linux and other Unices, 
but in modern Linux kernels, serial ports are /dev/ttyS[0-3], (virtual) 
consoles are /dev/tty[1-9]+ or /dev/console, and pseudo-terminals (e.g. 
used by xterm and screen) are /dev/pts/*.  /dev/tty may end up pointing 
to any of them as appropriate to the process.

Check out these man pages:
pty(7)
tty(4)
ttyS(4)
pts(4)
console(4)

-- 
==============================|   "A microscope locked in on one point
 Rob Funk <rfunk at funknet.net> |Never sees what kind of room that it's in"
 http://www.funknet.net/rfunk |    -- Chris Mars, "Stuck in Rewind"