I had an old installation of Netscape in /opt/netscape.
mkdir /opt/build/netscape
cd /opt/build/netscape
gzip -cd /opt/ftp/<netscape-navigator-4.03>.tar.gz | tar xvfp -
sh install-netscape
(This moved all the files under /opt/netscape to the same file plus
.orig, which may also have already existed)
At this point I started getting errors complaining that subdirectories
under /opt/netscape were not there and therefore it could not write the
files that belong in these subdirectories.
I looked at /opt/netscape, and it appeared empty!
Rather disturbed by this, I tried to unmount /opt, which was not otherwise
busy. This hung, using up more than a minute of CPU time. I tried
unmounting a couple of other file systems with similar results, so I
rebooted. Upon fsck (done under 2.0.30) it found many lost files from
/opt/netscape and put them in lost+found.
Sounds like a remaining race that can be triggered by some combination of
deleting/replacing/overwriting/renaming a few dozen files. I hope this is
helpful...
David
Niemi@erols.com 703-810-5538 Reston, Virginia, USA
--- Staying one step ahead instead of one step behind is the
--- difference between stunning success and dismal failure.