Xref: utzoo unix-pc.general:3810 comp.sys.att:7709 comp.sources.bugs:1975
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!husc6!spdcc!gnosys!gst
From: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general,comp.sys.att,comp.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: B news 2.11 patch 18 considered harmful
Summary: I know about virtual memory; patch 18 problem solved.
Message-ID: <395@gnosys.svle.ma.us>
Date: 5 Oct 89 06:03:05 GMT
References: <392@gnosys.UUCP> <1676@mtunb.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us (Gary S. Trujillo)
Organization: gst's 3B1 - Somerville, Massachusetts
Lines: 45

In article <1676@mtunb.ATT.COM> jcm@mtunb.UUCP (was-John McMillan) writes:
> In article <392@gnosys.UUCP> gst@gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
> >Recently, the following was posted:
> :
> >...                                                Worse yet, rn goes crazy
> >when there's such a wide article-sequence spread (runs out of memory on my
> >2 meg machine, in fact).
> 
> 	There is little relationship between having 2 Meg of RAM and
> 	running out of memory: Virtual Memory means not having to say
> 	"You're outta RAM" -- you're just out of Virtual Address [VA] space
> 	or out of SWAP space...

Yeah, yeah.  I just left out the details - that's all.  I realize that what
got exhausted was swap space.  Still, my point was that there was a problem
with the situation I encountered.

BTW, the story has a happy ending:  turns out I accidentally let an old
(pre-patch 18) version of rnews deal with a new batch of news.  It didn't
know how to deal with the new-format active file.  Thanks to Gordon Burditt
for putting me on the track of the problem:

|Date: Wed, 4 Oct 89 10:35:05 cdt
|From: ima!harvard!husc6!wuarchive!sneaky!gordon (Gordon Burditt)
|Subject: Re: B news 2.11 patch 18 considered harmful
|In-Reply-To: <392@gnosys.UUCP>
|Organization: Gordon Burditt
|
|This is the sort of thing I saw while installing patchlevel 18 when I
|accidentally let loose the OLD rnews with the NEW active file format.
|(A batch sort of snuck in during the installation, and rnews is a copy,
|not link, to inews, because they are on different file systems, so
|it was a little slower getting both changed).
|
|Once I cleaned up the mess in the active file, it's been working fine.
|
|					Gordon L. Burditt
|					...!texbell!sneaky!gordon

Same here.  Thanks, Gordon!


-- 
Gary S. Trujillo			      gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts		      {wjh12,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst