Problems with ls -lrt

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am doing

ls -lrt

and it does not respond and have to close the xterm

ls

works ok

2

Are you using ldap by chance or some other directory service? The difference between the two commands is that the first command performs all kinds of username and groupname lookups. If your directory service functions poorly there may be delays. It could also be an NFS problem..

3

Have you tried without -lr ? As Scrutinizer stated when doing an ls -l, if you have windbind / ldap or any type of external authorization source you can gravely slowdown the look up with ls -l (since it does a lookup to resolve the names)

4 
ls -t

works fine

I'm using Fedora 10. Any idea how I can get this to work as it's frustrating having to close the xterm

5

Any ls command with -l in it will have trouble. -t will not be problematic since it gets its information from the inodes, not from the network. There is probably something wrong with your system or network service and you will have to troubeshoot. Most likely getent passwd will not work either. Have a look at /etc/nsswitch.conf to see what directory service is being used for passwd and groups lookup and find out if that is working properly...