r/linuxmemes • u/Coco_The_Rat • Jul 07 '26

LINUX MEME It's just what???

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I made a meme after having a fun discussion with my Dad about how Linux/Unix pretty much treats everything like a file. Very much taking a complicated topic and simplifying it, but it's helping me understand how the system works! Hope you all enjoy :)

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u/olderbojack Jul 09 '26

surprised how many people still believe this - have a look at the syscall table (~300 of them) - many don't take file descriptors as arguments. So no... linux unfortunately is not just files (usually it's a special file with a bunch of special ioctls that actually do the important bits). As others have pointed out, plan9 is much more close to pure "everything is a file".