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From: arthur@warwick.UUCP (John Vaudin)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Hard disk problem ( really exec problem )
Message-ID: <504@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 21:41:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ubu.504
Posted: Mon Mar  9 21:41:48 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Mar-87 00:51:09 EST
Reply-To: arthur@ubu.UUCP (John Vaudin)
Organization: Computer Science, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 29

I think I confused several people with my rather vague posting, so to
clarify things a bit:

The problem with having to flush buffers in C programs is indeed mentioned
in the book, so I appologise for that one. My excuse (and I'm sticking
to it :-) is that I had the software along time before I got the book. 
Some of the fixes suggested seem quite interesting I must try implementing
them just as soon as I get this hard disk going!

The problem with exec as steve points out is not that there is a finite 
stack limit, but that the kernel does not return the correct status if
it gets used up. Thus instead of getting the message "argument list too long"
you get the message "fnurd: cannot excecute" which is kind of non obvious. 
This is not a shell bug, as when the minix shell is run on a real UNIX 
system ( it worked first time ) it produces the correct result.

The problem with rm, which is not a bug, is simply that it lacks the facility
to say rm - -foobar to remove -foobar. I didn't expect to be able to say 
just rm -foobar. 

By the way Minix does indeed run on an Amstrad PC, but it does not seem to
work with the hard disk at all. Probably a new driver required I guess.
Just thought you'd like to know.

John.

UUCP: ..!ukc!warwick!arthur     JANET: arthur@uk.ac.warwick.uu

"Na, that's not an operating system. THIS is an operating system!"