4 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
5 software necessary to run the 3.0 kernels.
7 This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
8 and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
9 Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
12 Current Minimal Requirements
13 ============================
15 Upgrade to at *least* these software revisions before thinking you've
16 encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
17 running, the suggested command should tell you.
19 Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
20 running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all
21 systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
22 you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.
24 o Gnu C 3.2 # gcc --version
25 o Gnu make 3.80 # make --version
26 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
27 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
28 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
29 o e2fsprogs 1.41.4 # e2fsck -V
30 o jfsutils 1.1.3 # fsck.jfs -V
31 o reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 # reiserfsck -V
32 o xfsprogs 2.6.0 # xfs_db -V
33 o squashfs-tools 4.0 # mksquashfs -version
34 o btrfs-progs 0.18 # btrfsck
35 o pcmciautils 004 # pccardctl -V
36 o quota-tools 3.09 # quota -V
37 o PPP 2.4.0 # pppd --version
38 o isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 # isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
39 o nfs-utils 1.0.5 # showmount --version
40 o procps 3.2.0 # ps --version
41 o oprofile 0.9 # oprofiled --version
42 o udev 081 # udevd --version
43 o grub 0.93 # grub --version || grub-install --version
44 o mcelog 0.6 # mcelog --version
45 o iptables 1.4.2 # iptables -V
54 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
60 You will need Gnu make 3.80 or later to build the kernel.
65 Linux on IA-32 has recently switched from using as86 to using gas for
66 assembling the 16-bit boot code, removing the need for as86 to compile
67 your kernel. This change does, however, mean that you need a recent
73 You will need perl 5 and the following modules: Getopt::Long, Getopt::Std,
74 File::Basename, and File::Find to build the kernel.
79 You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
88 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
89 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
91 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun!
93 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
94 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
95 definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with the
96 SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook
97 files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript,
98 HTML, PDF files, and several other formats. In order to convert from
99 DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as
100 well as the desired DocBook stylesheets.
105 New versions of util-linux provide *fdisk support for larger disks,
106 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
107 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
108 You'll probably want to upgrade.
113 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
114 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
115 It is generally preferred to build the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS so
116 that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
117 produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel
118 is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and you have no way to rebuild and
119 reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
125 A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires module-init-tools
126 to use. It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
131 These changes to the /lib/modules file tree layout also require that
132 mkinitrd be upgraded.
137 The latest version of e2fsprogs fixes several bugs in fsck and
138 debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
143 The jfsutils package contains the utilities for the file system.
144 The following utilities are available:
145 o fsck.jfs - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
146 and repair a JFS formatted partition.
147 o mkfs.jfs - create a JFS formatted partition.
148 o other file system utilities are also available in this package.
153 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
154 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
155 versions of mkreiserfs, resize_reiserfs, debugreiserfs and
156 reiserfsck. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
161 The latest version of xfsprogs contains mkfs.xfs, xfs_db, and the
162 xfs_repair utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is
163 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
164 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
165 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
170 PCMCIAutils replaces pcmcia-cs (see below). It properly sets up
171 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
172 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
178 PCMCIA (PC Card) support is now partially implemented in the main
179 kernel source. The "pcmciautils" package (see above) replaces pcmcia-cs
185 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
186 the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and
187 newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer
188 from the table above.
193 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
194 accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
195 udev you may need to:
198 mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
199 chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
201 as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to
202 get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
206 udev is a userspace application for populating /dev dynamically with
207 only entries for devices actually present. udev replaces the basic
208 functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
214 Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
215 options 'direct_io' and 'kernel_cache' won't work.
223 If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
224 consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
228 The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
229 kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
230 for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
235 The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
236 enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP,
237 upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
239 If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
240 which can be made by:
242 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
249 Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
250 needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
255 In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
256 about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
257 information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client
258 mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup. exportfs
259 would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab.
261 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
262 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
263 fail-over. Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from
264 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
266 With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
267 when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
268 appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the
269 dependency on rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about
270 currently active clients.
272 To enable this new functionality, you need to:
274 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
276 before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
277 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
283 On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
284 events when CONFIG_X86_MCE is enabled. Machine check events are errors reported
285 by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
287 Getting updated software
288 ========================
295 o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
299 o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
303 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
310 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
314 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
318 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/>
322 o <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
326 o <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
330 o <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
334 o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
338 o <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
342 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
346 o <http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/>
350 o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
354 o <http://nwalsh.com/docbook/dsssl/>
358 o <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/>
362 o <http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/>
366 o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html>
370 o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
374 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/cpu/mce/>
381 o <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
385 o <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
389 o <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
393 o <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
397 o <ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/ip-routing/iproute2-2.2.4-now-ss991023.tar.gz>
401 o <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
405 o <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
projects / mirror_ubuntu-artful-kernel.git / blob