Hi, I am sorry for responding to my own question, but there was a second part that was confusing me. On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 15:19 -0500, William Case wrote: > Hi; > > I have been reading some manuals about Operating Systems / Linux but I > have been left unclear about some things that are being written. > > >From Modern Operating Systems - Tannenbaum > "Two different solutions were developed for structuring and modularizing > the character drivers." > > He goes on to describe the BSD solution and the System V solution. He > and other authors are not clear on whether Linux uses one or the other > solution, or, whether Linux uses both -- BSD with C-Lists and line > discipline for keyboard, mouse etc. input; and, Monitor and printer > output -- while the System V solution is used for things like > networking. > > The above seems to be how things are organized, but I would just like > some confirmation. I have lots of info to study, if I can feel > confident I am going in the right direction. > > Read that as I only need a short answer. I can get fuller explanations > from the manuals I have. > Tannenbaum calls the System V solution, streaming. However, I have read on the OCLUG mailing list and elsewhere, as well as having been told verbally that 'everything' is a stream, and in particular that keyboard input was a stream. It's confusing. Regards Bill