Maybe it's just my system, but we now have so many source files that make etags complains about the arguments list being too long. Using xargs fixes it. Use xargs for etags generation to avoid argument list limit --- orig/Makefile.in +++ mod/Makefile.in @@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ # Misc rules TAGS etags: - etags `find $(TOPSRCDIR) -name '*.[ch]' -a -not -name '*.spec.c' -a -not -name '*.dbg.c' -print` + find $(TOPSRCDIR) -name '*.[ch]' -a -not -name '*.spec.c' -a -not -name '*.dbg.c' -print | xargs etags tags ctags: ctags --c-types=+px `find $(TOPSRCDIR) -name '*.[ch]' -a -not -name '*.spec.c' -a -not -name '*.dbg.c' -print`