Prevent process in disk wait

[FreeBSD-Questions]

Hello list,

While installing the Ruby port on a 6.1-Release system (uname -a
FreeBSD sigma.socruel.nu 6.1-RELEASE-p6 FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE-p6 #0: Wed
Sep 20 08:40:52 CEST 2006
root at sigma.socruel.nu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/SIGMA  i386) I see that the
process gets into a DL+ state:

37696  p0  IW+    0:00.00 make install
37780  p0  IW+    0:00.00 (sh)
37781  p0  IW+    0:00.00 make -f Makefile OPENSSL_CFLAGS=-DNO_IDEA
install
37787  p0  IW+    0:00.00 /bin/sh -ec ./miniruby ./runruby.rb
--extout=.ext -- "./bin/rdoc" --all --ri --op "/usr/local/share/ri/1.8
37788  p0  DL+   39:43.11 ./ruby18 ./bin/rdoc --all --ri --op
/usr/local/share/ri/1.8/system .

The system is an old Pentium 5 with a standard IDE drive. Is there a
possibility to tweak the system so that this doesn't happen or is
something terribly wrong with the system? Besides this the system is
running fine. This causes this process to take a very long time ....

MTIA.

Cheers,
Lars.