On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Matti Aarnio wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dietmar Stein) asked:
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > not really the topic - I know - but I read that the maximum size of one
> > file is currently 2GB on linux like on other operating systems (e.g
> > HP-UX supports filesizes above 2GB but HP does not take support for it).
> >
> > Is there a way to increase the size for testing? I was looking for a
> > parameter in the kernel like ulimit but didn't find until now. Can
> > someone tell me how to change/increase?
>
> With Linux 2.0 kernel series at 32-bit systems (e.g. i386)
> the answer is: 2G is absolute limit, period.
>
> The longer answer contains the size limit explanations
> which are available at 64-bit systems (for 2.0 just Alpha
> machines). See files at ftp://mea.tmt.tele.fi/linux/LFS/
>
> At the above mentioned place there is also patch for the kernel
> to support sizes over 2G at 32-bit platforms, however they
> are not fully ready to be used quite yet -- some issues are
> still open regarding glibc 2.1 support syncing.
I don't know about this. I believe the primary issue is support for >
2GB files is a design limiation in ext2fs. I don't think it has anything
to do with the architecture. Supposedly, ext3fs will fix this.
For example, FreeBSD has support > 2GB because it uses UFS, and UFS
supports > 2GB files. I understand that UFS is available for Linux too,
and when you use it, you get > 2GB files too. I also understand that
other non-ext2fs filesystems for Linux > 2GB files too.
Tom
