1 Minimal requerements to compile the Kernel
2 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
7 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
8 software necessary to run the 3.0 kernels.
10 This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
11 and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
12 Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
15 Current Minimal Requirements
16 ****************************
18 Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've
19 encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
20 running, the suggested command should tell you.
22 Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
23 running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all
24 systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
25 you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.
27 ====================== =============== ========================================
28 Program Minimal version Command to check the version
29 ====================== =============== ========================================
30 GNU C 3.2 gcc --version
31 GNU make 3.80 make --version
33 util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version
34 module-init-tools 0.9.10 depmod -V
35 e2fsprogs 1.41.4 e2fsck -V
36 jfsutils 1.1.3 fsck.jfs -V
37 reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 reiserfsck -V
38 xfsprogs 2.6.0 xfs_db -V
39 squashfs-tools 4.0 mksquashfs -version
40 btrfs-progs 0.18 btrfsck
41 pcmciautils 004 pccardctl -V
42 quota-tools 3.09 quota -V
43 PPP 2.4.0 pppd --version
44 isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
45 nfs-utils 1.0.5 showmount --version
46 procps 3.2.0 ps --version
47 oprofile 0.9 oprofiled --version
48 udev 081 udevd --version
49 grub 0.93 grub --version || grub-install --version
50 mcelog 0.6 mcelog --version
51 iptables 1.4.2 iptables -V
52 openssl & libcrypto 1.0.0 openssl version
53 bc 1.06.95 bc --version
54 ====================== =============== ========================================
63 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
69 You will need GNU make 3.80 or later to build the kernel.
74 Linux on IA-32 has recently switched from using ``as86`` to using ``gas`` for
75 assembling the 16-bit boot code, removing the need for ``as86`` to compile
76 your kernel. This change does, however, mean that you need a recent
82 You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``,
83 ``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel.
88 You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
94 Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
95 crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
97 You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
98 enabled. You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
105 Architectural changes
106 ---------------------
108 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
109 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
111 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun!
113 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
114 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
115 definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with the
116 SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook
117 files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript,
118 HTML, PDF files, and several other formats. In order to convert from
119 DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as
120 well as the desired DocBook stylesheets.
125 New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks,
126 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
127 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
128 You'll probably want to upgrade.
133 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
134 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
135 It is generally preferred to build the kernel with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` so
136 that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
137 produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel
138 is not build with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` and you have no way to rebuild and
139 reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
145 A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires ``module-init-tools``
146 to use. It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
151 These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that
152 mkinitrd be upgraded.
157 The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and
158 debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
163 The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system.
164 The following utilities are available:
166 - ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
167 and repair a JFS formatted partition.
169 - ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition.
171 - other file system utilities are also available in this package.
176 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
177 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
178 versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and
179 ``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
184 The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the
185 ``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is
186 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
187 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
188 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
193 PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up
194 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
195 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
201 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
202 the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and
203 newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer
204 from the table above.
209 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
210 accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
211 udev you may need to:
216 mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
217 chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
219 as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to
220 get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
225 ``udev`` is a userspace application for populating ``/dev`` dynamically with
226 only entries for devices actually present. ``udev`` replaces the basic
227 functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
233 Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
234 options ``direct_io`` and ``kernel_cache`` won't work.
242 If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
243 consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
247 The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
248 kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
249 for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
254 The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
255 enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP,
256 upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
258 If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
259 which can be made by:
263 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
270 Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
271 needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
276 In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
277 about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
278 information would be given to the kernel by ``mountd`` when the client
279 mounted the filesystem, or by ``exportfs`` at system startup. exportfs
280 would take information about active clients from ``/var/lib/nfs/rmtab``.
282 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
283 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
284 fail-over. Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from
285 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
287 With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
288 when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
289 appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the
290 dependency on ``rmtab`` and means that the kernel only needs to know about
291 currently active clients.
293 To enable this new functionality, you need to:
297 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
299 before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
300 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
306 On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
307 events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors
308 reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
310 Getting updated software
311 ========================
319 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
324 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
329 - <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
334 - <https://www.openssl.org/>
342 - <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
347 - <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
352 - <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/>
357 - <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
362 - <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
367 - <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
372 - <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
377 - <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
382 - <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
387 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
392 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/docbook-dsssl/>
397 - <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/>
402 - <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
407 - <http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
412 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
417 - <http://www.mcelog.org/>
425 - <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
430 - <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
435 - <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
440 - <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
445 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
450 - <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
455 - <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>