X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-0.4 required=5.0	tests=AWL,BAYES_50,RP_MATCHES_RCVD
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
Message-ID: <4ECD104C.8010907@arlut.utexas.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:25:00 -0600
From: Jesse Ziser <ziser AT arlut DOT utexas DOT edu>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:8.0) Gecko/20111105 Thunderbird/8.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: "Couldn't allocate heap" - tried rebasing
References: <4EBD461E DOT 6080408 AT arlut DOT utexas DOT edu>	<4EBD696F DOT 5030708 AT cornell DOT edu> <4EC2A265 DOT 5000702 AT arlut DOT utexas DOT edu>	<4ECC0452 DOT 2090100 AT arlut DOT utexas DOT edu> <CAG_2cTkVHCggBnQiCZ0Ts5HGUHwLOODduSnYKU4d=XpLp8bC8A AT mail DOT gmail DOT com> <4ECC7565 DOT 2090304 AT cygwin DOT com>
In-Reply-To: <4ECC7565.2090304@cygwin.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-IsSubscribed: yes
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

On 11/22/2011 10:24 PM, Larry Hall (Cygwin) wrote:
> On 11/22/2011 8:08 PM, Jon Clugston wrote:
>>>
>>> Actually, I just noticed this remark:
>>>
>>> "In summary, current Windows implementations make it
>>> impossible to implement a perfectly reliable fork, and occasional
>>> fork failures are inevitable."
>>>
>>> in winsup/doc/overview2.sgml in the source tree. Does that mean that,
>>> even
>>> with the improvements mentioned above, we cannot expect important Cygwin
>>> apps/scripts to always work reliably in a post-WinXP world? My
>>> company has
>>> been moving from Win2K/XP to Win7, so this would be important info
>>> for us.
>>>
>>> So how serious is the above remark? I don't see anything quite that
>>> strongly-phrased in the FAQ. Maybe it should be mentioned there?
>>>
>>
>> I would assume that "current Windows implementations" means XP and
>> above. I have found it to be quite stable on Windows 7 once a rebase
>> is done. I also believe that the possibility of "fork" failing has
>> always been there - even in Cygwin 1.5. So, maybe the remark is not
>> quite as scary as it might at first appear.
>
> The fork issue is nothing new. It has existed for a long time. The 1.5
> series was certainly not immune. The fact that fork failures may be more
> prevalent now than before has as much to do with the growth in the number
> of packages available with Cygwin as it does with the changes in the
> Windows environment that work against the fork implementation. And there
> have been efforts to combat the negative impacts of both of these changes,
> particularly in post 1.7.9 snapshots (and eventually packages. :-) ) My
> recommendation is to not worry about fork failures until you see them and
> then install the rebase package, read the readme, and follow the directions
> found there. In other words, don't worry more now than you did before. ;-)

OK.  From that document I had gotten the impression that the 
inevitability of the problem was related to Address Space Layout 
Randomization introduced in Windows Vista, and therefore, XP had been in 
a better situation.  If the probability of problems after the latest 
snapshot on Win7 is the same as it's always been on WinXP, then I guess 
we'll be no more or less likely than before to see these issues.  Thanks.

-- 
+---------------------------+
| Jesse Ziser, Code Warrior |
| Applied Research Labs: UT |
+---------------------------+

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple