fdisk says cannot use nnn sectors of this partition
The questions in this section are only relevant to users of software that is at least 3 months old.
Please let me know if you find the answer to a problem you had here,
as unused questions in this section will eventually disappear
[Q13.1 `Feedback is invited'].
Question 11.1. Emacs just dumps core.
You probably have a version of Emacs that was compiled to work with
X11; this requires the X11 libraries to work. If you're using
Slackware you can change the /usr/bin/emacs symbolic link to point to emacs-19.29-no-x11 instead (see man ln). This is in the file emac_nox.tgz on Slackware 3.0's E6 disk.
Question 11.2.
Originally Linux only supported the Minix filesystem, which cannot use
more than 64Mb per parition. This limitation is not present in the
more advanced filesystems now available, such as ext2fs (the 2nd
version of the Extended Filesystem, the `standard' Linux filesystem).
fdisk says cannot use nnn sectors of this partition
If you intend to use ext2fs you can ignore the message.
Question 11.3. GCC sometimes uses huge amounts of virtual memory and
thrashes
Older versions of GCC had a bug which made them use lots of memory if
you tried to compile a program which had a large static data table in
it.
You can either upgrade your version of GCC to at least version 2.5, or
add more swap if necessary and just grin and bear it; it'll work in
the end.
Question 11.4. My keyboard goes all funny after I switch
VC's.
This is a bug in kernel versions before 0.99pl14-alpha-n. Sometimes
Linux loses track of what modifier keys (Shift, Alt, Control etc.) are
pressed or not, and believes that one or more are pressed when they
are not. The solution is to press and release each of the modifier
keys (without pressing any other keys) --- this will ensure that Linux
knows what state the keyboard is actually in.
This problem often occurs when switching out of X windows; it can sometimes be avoided by releasing Ctrl and Alt very quickly after pressing the F-key of the VC you are switching to.
Ian Jackson / ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu - 06 March 1996