and about a dozen or so similar. So I figure it because I'm limited to 10 processes and it's trying to fork more than that. Is there a way I can limit the number of processes it tries to fork?
eggdrop, like many software programs, require compiling.
The compilation process can be allmost as complex as the way the program works.
When compiling eggdrops, you can have many programs trying to pipe or pass information to a second, thrid, forth (you get the picture) program. This can go on, upto, well, hundreds of programs.
As such, you should contact your shell admin, and ask him to temporary increase the process limit, or use soft limits, rather than hard (soft limits, is when a program is run on a regualr basis, and works out who is running what, how long for, and then compares this info with the limits the user should have. It could then compare this informationagainst allowed, and disallowed software, thus meansing a complex compile would work, but not too many eggdrops.).
Hard limits are a feature of the OS the system is running, and can be used to stop a process dead. Hard limits place a hard limit ont he ammount of processes to be run at any one time, without any buffer limit (which soft limits can provide).
The admin may have placed hard limits on the shell for a reason. Some admins do not like people compiling there own software (even if it is eggdrop). As they may contain backdoors, or DDOS vunrabilities. As such, you should check if pre-compiled versions are available on the shell before hand. If the latest version is not available, make a request to the shell admin, so that it can be so.
I e-mailed him the original reply you gave regarding soft limits and he's looking into it. He doesn't have a problem with users compiling their own eggdrops, bncs, etc.