From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Jun 22 15:46:49 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA12237 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:46:49 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from mail.camalott.com (root@[208.203.140.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA12211 for ; Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:46:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from joelh@gnu.org) Received: from detlev.UUCP (tex-152.camalott.com [208.229.74.152] (may be forged)) by mail.camalott.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA19274; Mon, 22 Jun 1998 17:45:11 -0500 Received: (from joelh@localhost) by detlev.UUCP (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA00777; Mon, 22 Jun 1998 17:45:36 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from joelh) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 17:45:36 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199806222245.RAA00777@detlev.UUCP> To: freebsd-root@i-zone.demon.co.uk CC: questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: message from John on Mon, 22 Jun 1998 08:16:01 +0100 Subject: Re: Emptying the "bit bucket" From: Joel Ray Holveck Reply-to: joelh@gnu.org References: Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG >> What exactly does "emptying the bit bucket" entail? I received a >> message on start-up asking me to do this. > Bizarre. Can you post the error message? The 'bit bucket' as it is > sometimes called, is /dev/null. It always returns 0 to a write. > Consequently, it is always 'empty'. He saw a fortune reading, Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. See the entry for "Bit Bucket" in the Jargon File for history on the idea of emptying it. Happy hacking, joelh -- Joel Ray Holveck - joelh@gnu.org - http://www.wp.com/piquan Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation - core dumped To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message