A finite variation might be more useful. I ran perl -e 'for (1..100) { fork }' on my 450MHz / 128 MB Linux box a while back. It ground more or less to a halt for about 20 minutes or so, and then it was fine again. Just remember, the number of processes forked is exponential!

--
Ryan Koppenhaver, Aspiring Perl Hacker
"I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave."