Hi!
For short How can I modify the xyz part of an IDE device name /dev/xyz?
In details My PC has three optical drives which I've added in turn: a CD recorder (/dev/hdb), a DVD reader (/dev/hdd), and a DVD recorder (/dev/hdc). Each of the 3 Linux distributiuons on my PC (Debian, Slackware and Suse) uses different device names in /etc/fstab, for these optical drives. For instance, my DVD reader is /dev/cdrom in Slackware, is /dev/dvd in Suse, and is /dev/hdd (in Debian). And the madhouse should complete since my DVD recorder is a /dev/cdrom and a /dev/dvd as well etc, etc. All in all: for both to know the renaming technique and to unify all my /etc/fstab files, I want to modify these device names.
Could anybody please explain me how to change an IDE name from /dev/oldname to /dev/newname and such that the system do not cry anyway?
Thanks!

those devices you mentioned like: /dev/dvd, /dev/cdrom don't actually exist. They are soft links to the actual devices which may be /dev/hdc, /dev/hdb, et cetera. The real devices can't be renamed.

Albeit, you can rename those links however you want or you may create new soft links with the name you want, it doesn't matter if you have several links pointing to the same device. Create soft links with ln -s:

check the man page for other options.

hope this had helped somehow and you can get your devices' names unified