lfs-book/chapter06/makedev-inst.xml

<sect2>
<title>Creating devices</title>

<para>Note: the MAKEDEV.bz2 file you have unpacked is not an archive, so it 
won't create a directory for you to cd into.</para>

<para>Create the device files by running the following commands:</para>

<para><screen><userinput>cp MAKEDEV-1.1 /dev/MAKEDEV &amp;&amp;</userinput>
<userinput>cd /dev &amp;&amp;</userinput>
<userinput>chmod 755 MAKEDEV &amp;&amp;</userinput>
<userinput>./MAKEDEV -v generic</userinput></screen></para>

<para>MAKEDEV will create hda[1-20] and hdb[1-20] and such but keep in mind
that you may not be able to use all of those devices due to kernel 
limitations regarding the max. number of partitions.</para>

</sect2>