Some more relevant info about the problem: - LFS was added to pdftex since version 1.40.6. It was enabled by default. To disable it, one must run "configure" with the option "--disable-largefile". - also starting from version 1.40.6, the "build.sh" script coming with pdftex sources tarball has the option "--disable-largefile" when calling "configure". This means that pdftex compiled from sources will have LFS disabled by default, unless one changes the "build.sh" script to remove that option to enable LFS, or skips "build.sh" and calls "configure" by himself. - the "Build" script used to build texlive does NOT have the option "--disable-largefile" by default, which means that TL is built with LFS enabled by default. - LFS has been broken on some systems since 1.40.6: - on Solaris SPARC: 1.40.6--1.40.9 have the same problem as current TL - on MacOSX PowerPC: - 1.40.6: pdftex failed with a message "Invalid argument". A google search shows that a similar problem was discussed on the context list: http://www.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2008/031066.html - 1.40.7--1.40.9: same problem as current TL Thanh