Linux identifies devices using two numbers: the major device number and the minor device number. The major device number specifies which driver the device corresponds to. The correspondence from major device numbers to drivers is fixed and part of the Linux kernel sources. Note that the same major device number may correspond to two different drivers, one a character device and one a block device. Minor device numbers distinguish individual devices or components controlled by a single driver. The meaning of a minor device number depends on the device driver.
For example, major device no. 3 corresponds to the primary IDE controller on the system. An IDE controller can have two devices (disk, tape, or CD-ROM drives) attached to it; the "master" device has minor device no. 0, and the "slave" device has minor device no. 64. Individual partitions on the master device (if the device supports partitions) are represented by minor device numbers 1, 2, 3, and so on. Individual partitions on the slave device are represented by minor device numbers 65, 66, 67, and so on.
Major device numbers are listed in the Linux kernel sources documentation. On many GNU/Linux distributions, this documentation can be found in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt. The special entry /proc/devices lists major device numbers corresponding to active device drivers currently loaded into the kernel. (See Chapter 7, "The /proc File System," for more information about /proc file system entries.)