Processing July

[Thomas Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

The linux sort program died while processing the big file after adding
July.  I have the following file space available:

3.7 G    /
44 G     /data
6.5G    /home

I assume that sort tries to get space in  /  and failed.  Is there an easy
way to solve this without reloading the system and giving  /   more space? 
For example, can I tell the sort routine where to get it's space?  Assume I
eventually want to sort files of X size.  How much space is needed to sort?
Where does it need to be in linux space?  Do I need more swap space, for
example?

Heh!  Heh!  You all know that the real reason for doing this work is so I
have an excuse to buy the latest and greatest computer.  There is really no
reason not to have more disk space, it is just that I happened to set up a
machine with a small and a large disk and that is how the system allocated
things without me doing anything.  Now I possibly know better. 

I have lots of work arounds.  So a solution is not critical.  I just want
to learn something as this problem will only get worse as the data size 
builds up.  OK, you all will have better ways than just using sort.  I just
want to be able to do simple minded things for checks.  

Tom Droege