Re: 2gig file

[brian moore <bem@cmc.net>]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2000 at 05:04:53PM -0500, Jens B. Jorgensen wrote:
> Brian Schramm wrote:
> 
> > OK.  I am dealing with a 2gig file size limit on Linux.  I have been
> > reading up on this all day to very little luck as to how to fix it.  If
> > I recomend someone to go to debian for an upgrade will this fix it?  I
> > am after any fix I can get and at this time changing dist. is just as
> > good for me as anything else.
> >
> > Please someone help me see the lite on this.
> 
> This is due to a limitation of the ext2 filesystem.  I believe the
> reiserfs filesystem supports longer files than this but you'd need
> to patch your kernel source to add this.  I also don't know if it's
> really ready for prime time yet.

No, it's not a limit of ext2.

It's a limit of Unix on 32-bit machines.  (How would you pass a 64 bit
offset to lseek() or get back a 64-bit offset without breaking
existing code?)

Fortunately, this has been worked out.  STFW for "Large File Summit" and
read the papers (gack, google is scary).  64-bit-files-on-32-bit-hardware
is coming with the 2.4 kernel.  (This is done with new system calls,
see the LFS papers for more info.)

-- 
Brian Moore                       | Of course vi is God's editor.
      Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker     | If He used Emacs, He'd still be waiting
      Usenet Vandal               |  for it to load on the seventh day.
      Netscum, Bane of Elves.