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620034c8 1 Linux kernel release 2.6.xx <http://kernel.org/>
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3These are the release notes for Linux version 2.6. Read them carefully,
4as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
5kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong.
6
7WHAT IS LINUX?
8
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9 Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by
10 Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across
11 the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.
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13 It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix,
14 including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
15 loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management,
16 and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.
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17
18 It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
19 accompanying COPYING file for more details.
20
21ON WHAT HARDWARE DOES IT RUN?
22
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23 Although originally developed first for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher),
24 today Linux also runs on (at least) the Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and
620034c8 25 UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, Cell,
4f4e2dc3 26 IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64, AXIS CRIS,
31714705 27 Xtensa, AVR32 and Renesas M32R architectures.
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28
29 Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures
30 as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the
31 GNU C compiler (gcc) (part of The GNU Compiler Collection, GCC). Linux has
32 also been ported to a number of architectures without a PMMU, although
33 functionality is then obviously somewhat limited.
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34 Linux has also been ported to itself. You can now run the kernel as a
35 userspace application - this is called UserMode Linux (UML).
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36
37DOCUMENTATION:
38
39 - There is a lot of documentation available both in electronic form on
40 the Internet and in books, both Linux-specific and pertaining to
41 general UNIX questions. I'd recommend looking into the documentation
42 subdirectories on any Linux FTP site for the LDP (Linux Documentation
43 Project) books. This README is not meant to be documentation on the
44 system: there are much better sources available.
45
46 - There are various README files in the Documentation/ subdirectory:
47 these typically contain kernel-specific installation notes for some
48 drivers for example. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what
49 is contained in each file. Please read the Changes file, as it
50 contains information about the problems, which may result by upgrading
51 your kernel.
52
53 - The Documentation/DocBook/ subdirectory contains several guides for
54 kernel developers and users. These guides can be rendered in a
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55 number of formats: PostScript (.ps), PDF, HTML, & man-pages, among others.
56 After installation, "make psdocs", "make pdfdocs", "make htmldocs",
57 or "make mandocs" will render the documentation in the requested format.
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2af238e4 59INSTALLING the kernel source:
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61 - If you install the full sources, put the kernel tarball in a
62 directory where you have permissions (eg. your home directory) and
63 unpack it:
64
65 gzip -cd linux-2.6.XX.tar.gz | tar xvf -
66
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67 or
68 bzip2 -dc linux-2.6.XX.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
69
70
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71 Replace "XX" with the version number of the latest kernel.
72
73 Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! This area has a (usually
74 incomplete) set of kernel headers that are used by the library header
75 files. They should match the library, and not get messed up by
76 whatever the kernel-du-jour happens to be.
77
78 - You can also upgrade between 2.6.xx releases by patching. Patches are