> ls | wc strange. i did [wojtek at wojtek ~/b]$ a=0;while [ $a -lt 10000 ];do mkdir $a;a=$[a+1];done completed <25 seconds on 1Ghz CPU ls takes 0.1 seconds user time, ls -l takes 0.3 second user time. unless you have 486/33 or slower system there is something wrong.