[ Thanks to Mayank
for this link. ]
“The Proc psuedo file system is a real time, memory resident
file system that tracks the processes running on your machine and
the state of your system. Read on to learn how to get the most out
of the /proc file system.”
“The most striking factor about the /proc file system is the
fact that the file system doesn’t exist on any particular media.
The /proc File System is a pseudo file system residing in the
virtual memory and maintains highly dynamic data on the state of
your operating system. Most of the information in the /proc file
system is updated to match the current state of the operating
system. The contents of the /proc file system can be read by anyone
who has the requisite permissions. However, certain parts of the
/proc file system can be read only by the owner of the process and
of course root. The contents of the /proc filesystem are used by
many utilities which grab the data from the particular /proc
directory and display it.”
“Under Linux, we have utilities like lscpi, scanpci and pnpdump
which help us detect the various PCI, ISA hardware chipsets and
help us make the best choices as far as the io, dma and irq values
are concerned. Similarly by looking at the values of the various
parameters in the /proc file system, one can determine a lot about
the current state of the kernel and the processes under way.”