Crashed Minix after < 24hrs... is this a record?

[lineha...@gmail.com]

Hi all,

I don't think that I've ever before succeeded in crashing a new OS
after
less than 24 hours.

I was running the test suite in /usr/src/test and the system was in
the middle
of test 40 when I control-C'ed out of it - me being in a hurry to go
collecting for
charity before Saturday Mass here in Ireland.

I then ran ls -lrt into more and the first file was a new directory
called
DIR_40, so I assumed that this was created by test 40 which didn't
have
a chance to clean up after itself when I control-C'ed.

I cd'ed into it and hit the Tab key. It took a while and then said
bluntly
38456 possibities and returned me to the prompt.

I did ls and said out of memory. I shut down the VMWare virtual
machine, restarted
it and tried typing rm -r /usr/src/test/DIR_40 and it responds with
"Out of space".

I have tried rebooting several times but can't seem to get the system
clean again.

Does anybody have any idea of what I have to do to get my machine back
to
usability - now virtually every command I issue - i..e. even "ls" says
"Arg list
too long" or out of space or memory or something.

Any help appreciated.

Rgs.

Paul...

[Erik van der Kouwe]

> I cd'ed into it and hit the Tab key. It took a while and then said
> bluntly
> 38456 possibities and returned me to the prompt.
>
> I did ls and said out of memory. I shut down the VMWare virtual
> machine, restarted
> it and tried typing rm -r /usr/src/test/DIR_40 and it responds with
> "Out of space".
>
> I have tried rebooting several times but can't seem to get the system
> clean again.
>
> Does anybody have any idea of what I have to do to get my machine back
> to
> usability - now virtually every command I issue - i..e. even "ls" says
> "Arg list
> too long" or out of space or memory or something.

You did not crash the system. The operating system is running just
fine, it is the shell and shell commands that are having trouble,
probably because they do not have enough memory assigned to them to
deal with the large number of files.

It sounds like you haven't used the system for anything meaningful yet,
so the simplest solution may be to simply re-install. If you don't want
to do this, try assigning more memory to the shell and/or the rm
command using the chmem utility.

--
With kind regards,
Erik van der Kouwe

[lineha...@gmail.com]

On Jul 20, 8:01 am, "Erik van der Kouwe" <vdkouwe <at> few.vu.nl>
wrote:

> You did not crash the system. The operating system is running just
> fine, it is the shell and shell commands that are having trouble,
> probably because they do not have enough memory assigned to them to
> deal with the large number of files.

OK - I'll try what you suggested below.

> It sounds like you haven't used the system for anything meaningful yet,

Indeed, I haven't. I am a self-confessed newbie who is
interested in learning how to work the system properly.

I have some exposure to Unix, mostly as a user (shell
commands, scripting, DBA), but Unix sysadmin
proper is not my area. I appreciate that Minix is
not Unix, but then neither is Linux or BSD 8-)

I have chosed this system to try and learn on
because it is small, yet full-featured and appears
to run well on my old laptop. I am hampered by
the fact that I have no floppy or CDROM at the
moment, but I hope to rectify the latter shortly.

> so the simplest solution may be to simply re-install. If you don't want
> to do this,

I could have reinstalled alright. However, this is a bit
of a cop-out. What happens if I had spent hours and
hours configuring this, that and the other and then it
had happened?

I need (and want) to be able to understand what has
happened and why, and then be able to fix it. This is
really the critical thing for me - if I just wanted a big
system that works (most of the time) and that I
could never really understand, control or properly
configure, then I could just stick with Windows...

Actually, I exaggerate somewhat - I have a good
skillset with Windows, but at the end of the day,
the user doesn't have access to all the nooks and
crannies of the system - i.e. the source.

I could go down the Linux route, but the reason that
I have chosen Minix, is that I am also trying to learn
"C" properly and want a small system, yet one that
is powerful enough to actually get work done.

Currently I don't work with C and/or Unix/Linux geeks
and am trying to learn about OS's, C and system
configuration on my own, hence my appeals for
help on this newsgroup.

I'm not asking for spoon-feeding here - I know
enough to run man xxxx and Google (and to
vary my search terms if the first search doesn't
give me the answer to my problem), but there
will be times, especially at the beginning where
I will need a little hand-holding and TLC.

I have in mind a couple of projects (later on down
the line) when I've got up to speed on what I would
like to do to actually contribute to the system, but
I am trying to use the resources at my disposal
for the moment, and I do appreciate any help which
people are prepared to give freely over the internet.

> try assigning more memory to the shell and/or the rm
> command using the chmem utility.

I will look into this, thanks.

mvg.

Paul...

> Erik van der Kouwe

[Greg King]

linehan.paul wrote ...

>
> I don't think that I've ever before succeeded in crashing a new OS
> after less than 24 hours.
>

> I was running the test suite in /usr/src/test, and the system was in
> the middle of test 40 when I control-C'ed out of it -- I being in a hurry

> to go
> collecting for charity before Saturday Mass here in Ireland.
>

> I then ran "ls -lrt" into "more", and the first file was a new directory

> called
> DIR_40, so I assumed that this was created by test 40 which didn't
> have a chance to clean up after itself when I control-C'ed.
>

> I cd'ed into it, and hit the Tab key. It took a while, and then said
> bluntly 38456 possibities, and returned me to the prompt.
>
> I did "ls"; it said "out of memory."

The "ls" command must read the entire directory into RAM so that it can sort
the list and display it in several columns across the screen. Try using the
"-1" and "-f" options -- maybe, they will prevent "ls" from trying to load
everything into memory.

> I shut down the VMWare virtual machine, ...

Did you remember to shut down Minix _before_ you shut down VMware?
If you don't do that, then you will corrupt Minix's file-system!

> ... restarted it, and tried typing "rm -r /usr/src/test/DIR_40; it
> responded with
> "Out of space".

Try Changing into the /usr/src/test Directory, then removing "DIR_40" (the
path-names will be shorter).