Bearskin is series of command wrappers that creates a common interface for controlling the device types under Minerva's control. It also maintains the state, in those cases where other software does not support it. This allows replacement software to control the CD player (for example), or for the command to be sent across a network to a different machine.

The currently supported abstractions are all held in /usr/local/minerva/bin include:

The <device> in each case will generally be default to indicate the default outstream, which is the set of devices attached to the server machine. In the future this will be expanded to support multiple soundcards and CD-ROMs on the one machine, and connections to remote PCs.