As an example, to turn on one of the on-board LED's you need to update the text file "/sys/class/leds/beaglebone:green:usr0"
In writing some tests just turning on and off lights, it's very slow. I believe this is because it uses the file system instead of directly interfacing with the hardware via an API or memory addressing.
Just wondering if there is any other way other than the file system. I don't know if this is a Linux thing or a BeagleBone Black thing.