Date: Sun, 23 Jan 94 02:17:20 EST
   From: Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>
   Cc: current-users@sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu
   Reply-To: Mike Long <Mike.Long@analog.com>
   Organization: Analog Devices Inc, Norwood MA, USA
   X-Attribution: MWL

   >Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 17:26 EST
   >From: Roland McGrath <roland@frob.com>
   >
   >When I run my normal X setup, with several clients at once, some from the
   >net, and including a changing background picture frob going all the time
   >(at nice -20) so the X server never sits still, after a short time of use
   >(before today's kernel it happened immediately) I can do X things and type
   >into my xterms, but the shells seem not to be able to fork; I can keep
   >using my emacs until it tries to fork a subprocess, at which point it
   >wedges completely.

   Sounds like you're running out of process table entries to me.  Try
   increasing 'maxusers' in your kernel config (A good idea for X users
   anyway).  You may also want to make sure that you have enough ptys.

I really don't think that is the problem.  My `maxusers' value and
number of ptys have been the same for months, and this problem only
started a week ago.  My recent X usage has been much less exhaustive
than I have done regularly in the past.

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