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From: LISO1.dnet.ge.com!HIGGINS@ge-dab.ge.com (Sean C. Higgins 8*259-2073)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: RE: Weird problem with V1.3
Message-ID: <44538@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 91 13:12:15 GMT
Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 58


>From: Gregory Larkin <mcnc!VM1.NoDak.EDU!greg%MOBIUS.VIEWLOGIC.COM>
> 
>Hi all,
> 
>Lately, (last 2 days) I have noticed a strange problem in 1.3 minix.
> 
>I am unable to execute an "ls" command with a wildcard in certain
>directories.  I am trying to build libc.a for V1.5.10. in /usr/src/lib.
>If I type "ls *.s | wc -l" to figure out how many .s files I have, the
>hard disk light flickers and stops.  If I press "F1" to get the process
>list, "ls" and "wc" are not there!  From this point, I am hung, so I
>have to use CTRL-ALT-F9 to get back.
> 
>I ran fsck on the disk, and the directory in question is flagged as
>huge, with 388 inodes.  Is this part of the problem?  Is there a
>limit to the number of files that the shell can expand?  If I just
>type "ls", it reports "Out of space".
> 
>What should I do? :-)
> 
>Thanks for any help,
>--
>Greg Larkin (ASIC Engineer)
>Viewlogic Systems, Inc. (The CAE Company)
>293 Boston Post Road West ____________________________________________
>Marlboro, MA 01752        |"This is a fragile ball we are living on; |
>508 480 0881 x321         |it's a miracle and we are destroying it.."|
>Email: greg@Viewlogic.COM |Peter Garrett, Midnight Oil               |
>                          --------------------------------------------

In searching through the many messages that I have saved from MINIX, I found
the following that might help you with your problem:

>From: Andy Tanenbaum <ast%CS.VU.NL@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: ls *.s

>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)

I hope that this helps...

              Sean