In Linux, major and minor numbers are used to identify devices and their associated drivers. The major number is a more generic category, such as hard disks or input/output devices. The minor number is more specific, such as the bus the device is connected to. For example, /dev/null and /dev/zero are both managed by driver 1, while all the tty's and pty's are managed by driver 4.  You can find the major and minor numbers for a device by issuing the ls -l /dev/* command. The numbers are separated by a comma and appear in the device file entries before the date of last modification.  Here are... Show more

In Linux, major and minor numbers are used to identify devices and their associated drivers. The major number is a more generic category, such as hard disks or input/output devices. The minor number is more specific, such as the bus the device is connected to. For example, /dev/null and /dev/zero are both managed by driver 1, while all the tty's and pty's are managed by driver 4. 

You can find the major and minor numbers for a device by issuing the ls -l /dev/* command. The numbers are separated by a comma and appear in the device file entries before the date of last modification. 
Here are some examples of major numbers: 10, 1, and 4. 
Here are some examples of minor numbers: 0, 3, 5, 64-65, and 128-129. 
You can allocate major and minor numbers in two ways: Statically and Dynamically. 

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