In Linux, there is the /dev directory, which is a special directory which contains all of the files for devices and other things like random, urandom, etc.
Why did this directory exist? Was it just an artifact that never got removed from the Linux kernel (and couldn't really for compatibility)?
One of the philosophies in linux is that everything is a file, encoded or not, it is a special directory as you said. Linux, unlike windows is highly customizable and this is a way that the administrator has to create and manipulate devices and so on.
It exists to contains all of the files for devices and other things like random, urandom, etc.
