I install TurboLinux 8(seems not so famous, but i think even i install other distroes, the case remains the same, maybe).
The kernel comes with the distro is 2.4.18, and it works very well.

But in order to support Firewire(IEEE1394) harddisk, I decided to upgrade it to 2.4.20(coz someone say this version supports Firewire better).

The new kernel i compiled seemed working well, except XWindow can't start anymore(i think i should install XFree86-devel rpm, or some dev packages alike). But the real big problem is when i ftp some backup file (about 3GB), kernel just complained about "file size limit exceed" and dumped core file with the copied file(dest file, not original file) truncated at 2GB. I've tried to set free all kernel limits by ulimit -a, but it didn't work. I even tried to recompile kernel with gcc -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE, but it still didn't work. BTW, i don't think there is any reason to compile 2.4.x kernel with these options, the new kernel just should support Large File S(??, forgot).

Does anyone have some sugguestion to solve this? Thanks.
(maybe i should turn kernel accounting? i turned it off, who knows)

Welcome to LQ.org, digizer0.

You can always split the file up using

split -b <size in bytes> filename

which would seem to be the easiest option. Can we assume it's a tarred file?

PS. I used to live in Kita-Urawa (actually Saitama not Tokyo).

Oh, err here's the answer to the problem too I think.

Bert

thanks alot Bert.
Well, you way (split file) is the last way i'll resort to, but there definitely should be some better way i think.

i wonder why the kernel i compiled can not support LFS.
Is the support for LFS *NOT* default when compiling 2.4.20 kernel?
That's too bad, the 2.4.20 should support LFS very well.
As to the page you mentioned, Bert, i've read it and recompiled kernel with "gcc -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64
-D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE", but no any effect.

Does anyone know how to properly compile the kernel with LFS support?

BTW, acturally i'm not live in Tokyo, but work in Tokyo, this is common, i think you would have known
What's more surprising would be I'm NOT a Japanese , but a Chinese

oh, i just forgot to ask, how to extract the files stored in the tar files, if i split the original into several? The original file is a tar.bz2 file.
And why did u come to japan and for how long? if u don't mind your privacy

There are a few options for split, and I think the only way is to extract the tar and then split it. Look at the options in the info page. Attention could be paid to the prefix option because:

split -b 100m a bigtarfile.tar

will produce 100Mb files:

aaa aab aac aad

as I said, best to look at the info page for split and decide how you want to do it.

BTW, being Chinese and living in Japan doesn't suprise me - I actually thought you were a westerner (because your English is too good to be a Japanese!).

it's not just the kernel. some commands/services are compiled with no LFS support. i think wu-ftpd is an example.

Thanks for all the people (up to now 2 persons ) who helped me.

i just have figured out the problem. Just like born4linux said, it's not the kernel but the program i used that does not support LFS.
When i changed to use another ftp client(lftp), the problem disappeared, it just works fine.

Thank you very much.