Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!amdahl!JUTS!phoenix!gpw10
From: gpw10@phoenixcd.amdahl.com (Gary Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: How can I print on my parallel printer?
Message-ID: <527G02a722mv01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>
Date: 17 Sep 92 14:56:31 GMT
References: <colin.716015692@marsh> <BuB0yD.An3@ibmpcug.co.uk> <BuI1qF.H0r@obiwan.uucp>
Sender: netnews@ccc.amdahl.com
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 39
In article <BuI1qF.H0r@obiwan.uucp>, bob@obiwan.uucp (Bob Willcox) writes:
> In article <BuB0yD.An3@ibmpcug.co.uk> adrian@ibmpcug.co.uk (Adrian
> Hall) writes:
> >You need to make the /dev/lp and /dev/lpt1 nodes.
> >
> > mknod /dev/lpt1 c 15 64
> > ln -s /dev/lpt1 /dev/lp
>
> Coming from a mostly System V world (prior to Vr4) I feel like I must
> be
> missing something here (i.e., I have little experience with symbolic
> links). My question is why would one want to use a symbolic link (as
> indicated) in the above situation rather than simply a hard link? Is
> there some problem with hard links in this situation? Seems to me
> that
> a symbolic link here simply requires an extra inode, some additional
> disk space, and slows down access to the /dev/lpt1 device. What am I
> missing???
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Bob Willcox
> ...!{rutgers|ames}!cs.utexas.edu!uudell!obiwan!bob
> Phone: 512 258-4224 (home)
> 512 838-3914 (work)
I myself did use a hard link here. I believe that many "BSD-ers" just
get into the habit of always typing "ln -s" since that always works, and
hard links only work on the same file system. The symbolic link will
use a little bit of disk space and be slower than a hard link, but if it
uses any more inodes than the hard link does, then *I* am missing
something...
--
+------------------------+---------------------------+
| Gary Ward | Amdahl Corporation |
| gpw10@cd.amdahl.com | 1250 East Arques Avenue |
| Phone : (408)746-8865 | P.O. Box 3470 M/S 142 |
| | Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470 |
+------------------------+---------------------------+