Linux Frequently Asked Questions with Answers: Questions applicable to very out-of-date software.

## 11. Questions applicable to very out-of-date software.

The questions in this section are only relevant to users of software that is at least three 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. (See `` Feedback is invited. '')

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## 11.1 fdisk says cannot use nnn sectors of this partition.

Originally Linux only supported the Minix file system, which cannot use more than 64Mb per partition. This limitation is not present in the more advanced file systems that are now available, such as ext2fs (the 2nd version of the Extended File System, the `standard' Linux file system).

If you intend to use ext2fs you can ignore the message.

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## 11.2 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, or add more swap space if necessary, or just wait for the program to finish compiling.

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