Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: ls *.s
Message-ID: <3348@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 23 Sep 89 07:45:45 GMT
References: <550@fred.UUCP>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 16

In article <550@fred.UUCP> bill@fred.UUCP (Bill Poitras) writes:
>I am using the new ls that allow mult-column output.  My minix is 1.4a
>running on a IBM-AT @ 6MHz.  When I do 'ls *.s' I get 'parameter list
>too long' ( or is that 'argument list...'? ) Any way, why doesn't that 
>work?  

MINIX, in contrast to UNIX, builds the stack given to exec in user space.
Only 2K is presently allocated for it.  This is not enough.  I didn't want to
make it bigger because it makes all programs bigger, and I am so frugal.
People have been complaining about this for years.   Relief is in sight.
POSIX specifically says that this limit must be at least 4K.  I will change it
to conform to POSIX.  For the time being, change MM_STACK_BYTES to 4096 and
recompile all the libraries, all the utilities, the operating system--everything.
The routine exec knows about this size and it is used all over the place.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)