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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!tektronix!reed!omen!caf
From: caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX)
Newsgroups: net.bugs.uucp,net.micro.pc,net.news,net.news.b
Subject: Re: stack overflow with Usenet under Xenix/286
Message-ID: <320@omen.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Apr-86 07:10:09 EST
Article-I.D.: omen.320
Posted: Tue Apr  1 07:10:09 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Apr-86 07:32:21 EST
References: <348@IMT3B2.UUCP>
Reply-To: caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX)
Distribution: net
Organization: Omen Technology, Portland
Lines: 48
Xref: watmath net.bugs.uucp:733 net.micro.pc:7647 net.news:4737 net.news.b:1350

In article <348@IMT3B2.UUCP> don@IMT3B2.UUCP (Don Kossman of SEI Information Technology) writes:
>
>Having installed the usenet "B" package on our IBM-PC/AT running SCO-
>XENIX-286, we get an immediate "stack overflow, segmentation fault"
>message when we try to run "Vnews", or anything else, for that matter.
>
>We initially compiled using the suggested small impure model and the
>optimizer in 86 mode.  Large model and 286 mode doesn't help, nor does
>removing the optimizer option.  
>
>This is the Microsoft C compiler, by the way.
>
>
>Has anyone seen this problem?  Or is anyone else running SCO XENIX/286
>on an AT with usenet?   Help appreciated....

The Xenix documentation indicates the default stack arrangement is to
set the stack at the top of the data segment and allow it to grow down
until it meets the heap. 

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any way to get Xenix to run
this way.  The default is a small fixed stack immediately above bss. 
The size if this fixed stack may be adjusted with the -F loader flag,
but there is no way to make it behave like the documentation promises
for the default case. 

Vnews is a lose on Xenix because there is no stack size spec that will
allow the database hashing program to handle a reasonable number of
articles. 

At Omen I am using rnews/inews and cunbatch for receiving articles. 
Although the machine has 2 MB ram, the Xenix C compiler huge model still
doesn't agree with compress, so we must limit our news feed's
compression to 12 bits. 

The news reader is "rn".  Each time I get a new C compiler I see if I
can compile rn with large model, but no luck so far.  I don't have a
spare man month or two to hack rn to get past the Xenix large model,
especially with a broken lint.  The small model version works, although
it runs out of memory and abends daily.  Fortunately, rn updates .newsrc
so one can start up another rn as many times as necessary to get through
the daily news. 

   Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX  ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf   CIS:70715,131
   Author of Professional-YAM communications Tools for PCDOS and Unix
 Omen Technology Inc     17505-V NW Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231
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