Documentation/Changes

   1 Intro
   2 =====
   3
   4 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
   5 software necessary to run the 3.0 kernels.
   6
   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
  10 'net).
  11
  12 Current Minimal Requirements
  13 ============================
  14
  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.
  18
  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.
  23
  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
  46 o  openssl & libcrypto    1.0.0                   # openssl version
  47 o  bc                     1.06.95                 # bc --version
  48
  49
  50 Kernel compilation
  51 ==================
  52
  53 GCC
  54 ---
  55
  56 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
  57 computer.
  58
  59 Make
  60 ----
  61
  62 You will need GNU make 3.80 or later to build the kernel.
  63
  64 Binutils
  65 --------
  66
  67 Linux on IA-32 has recently switched from using as86 to using gas for
  68 assembling the 16-bit boot code, removing the need for as86 to compile
  69 your kernel.  This change does, however, mean that you need a recent
  70 release of binutils.
  71
  72 Perl
  73 ----
  74
  75 You will need perl 5 and the following modules: Getopt::Long, Getopt::Std,
  76 File::Basename, and File::Find to build the kernel.
  77
  78 BC
  79 --
  80
  81 You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
  82
  83
  84 OpenSSL
  85 -------
  86
  87 Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
  88 crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
  89
  90 You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
  91 enabled.  You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
  92 and higher.
  93
  94
  95 System utilities
  96 ================
  97
  98 Architectural changes
  99 ---------------------
 100
 101 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
 102 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
 103
 104 32-bit UID support is now in place.  Have fun!
 105
 106 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
 107 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
 108 definitions in the source.  These comments can be combined with the
 109 SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook
 110 files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript,
 111 HTML, PDF files, and several other formats.  In order to convert from
 112 DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as
 113 well as the desired DocBook stylesheets.
 114
 115 Util-linux
 116 ----------
 117
 118 New versions of util-linux provide *fdisk support for larger disks,
 119 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
 120 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
 121 You'll probably want to upgrade.
 122
 123 Ksymoops
 124 --------
 125
 126 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
 127 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
 128 It is generally preferred to build the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS so
 129 that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
 130 produces better output than ksymoops).  If for some reason your kernel
 131 is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and you have no way to rebuild and
 132 reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
 133 with ksymoops.
 134
 135 Module-Init-Tools
 136 -----------------
 137
 138 A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires module-init-tools
 139 to use.  It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
 140
 141 Mkinitrd
 142 --------
 143
 144 These changes to the /lib/modules file tree layout also require that
 145 mkinitrd be upgraded.
 146
 147 E2fsprogs
 148 ---------
 149
 150 The latest version of e2fsprogs fixes several bugs in fsck and
 151 debugfs.  Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
 152
 153 JFSutils
 154 --------
 155
 156 The jfsutils package contains the utilities for the file system.
 157 The following utilities are available:
 158 o fsck.jfs - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
 159   and repair a JFS formatted partition.
 160 o mkfs.jfs - create a JFS formatted partition.
 161 o other file system utilities are also available in this package.
 162
 163 Reiserfsprogs
 164 -------------
 165
 166 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
 167 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
 168 versions of mkreiserfs, resize_reiserfs, debugreiserfs and
 169 reiserfsck. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
 170
 171 Xfsprogs
 172 --------
 173
 174 The latest version of xfsprogs contains mkfs.xfs, xfs_db, and the
 175 xfs_repair utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem.  It is
 176 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
 177 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
 178 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
 179
 180 PCMCIAutils
 181 -----------
 182
 183 PCMCIAutils replaces pcmcia-cs. It properly sets up
 184 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
 185 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
 186 subsystem is used.
 187
 188 Quota-tools
 189 -----------
 190
 191 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
 192 the newer version 2 quota format.  Quota-tools version 3.07 and
 193 newer has this support.  Use the recommended version or newer
 194 from the table above.
 195
 196 Intel IA32 microcode
 197 --------------------
 198
 199 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
 200 accessible as a normal (misc) character device.  If you are not using
 201 udev you may need to:
 202
 203 mkdir /dev/cpu
 204 mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
 205 chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
 206
 207 as root before you can use this.  You'll probably also want to
 208 get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
 209
 210 udev
 211 ----
 212 udev is a userspace application for populating /dev dynamically with
 213 only entries for devices actually present.  udev replaces the basic
 214 functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
 215 devices.
 216
 217 FUSE
 218 ----
 219
 220 Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later.  Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
 221 options 'direct_io' and 'kernel_cache' won't work.
 222
 223 Networking
 224 ==========
 225
 226 General changes
 227 ---------------
 228
 229 If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
 230 consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
 231
 232 Packet Filter / NAT
 233 -------------------
 234 The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
 235 kernel series (iptables).  It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
 236 for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
 237
 238 PPP
 239 ---
 240
 241 The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
 242 enable it to operate over diverse media layers.  If you use PPP,
 243 upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
 244
 245 If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
 246 which can be made by:
 247
 248 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
 249
 250 as root.
 251
 252 Isdn4k-utils
 253 ------------
 254
 255 Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
 256 needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
 257
 258 NFS-utils
 259 ---------
 260
 261 In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
 262 about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS.  This
 263 information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client
 264 mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup.  exportfs
 265 would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab.
 266
 267 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
 268 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
 269 fail-over.  Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from
 270 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
 271
 272 With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
 273 when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
 274 appropriate export information to the kernel.  This removes the
 275 dependency on rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about
 276 currently active clients.
 277
 278 To enable this new functionality, you need to:
 279
 280   mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
 281
 282 before running exportfs or mountd.  It is recommended that all NFS
 283 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
 284 that is possible.
 285
 286 mcelog
 287 ------
 288
 289 On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
 290 events when CONFIG_X86_MCE is enabled. Machine check events are errors reported
 291 by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
 292
 293 Getting updated software
 294 ========================
 295
 296 Kernel compilation
 297 ******************
 298
 299 gcc
 300 ---
 301 o  <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
 302
 303 Make
 304 ----
 305 o  <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
 306
 307 Binutils
 308 --------
 309 o  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
 310
 311 OpenSSL
 312 -------
 313 o  <https://www.openssl.org/>
 314
 315 System utilities
 316 ****************
 317
 318 Util-linux
 319 ----------
 320 o  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
 321
 322 Ksymoops
 323 --------
 324 o  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
 325
 326 Module-Init-Tools
 327 -----------------
 328 o  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/>
 329
 330 Mkinitrd
 331 --------
 332 o  <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
 333
 334 E2fsprogs
 335 ---------
 336 o  <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
 337
 338 JFSutils
 339 --------
 340 o  <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
 341
 342 Reiserfsprogs
 343 -------------
 344 o  <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
 345
 346 Xfsprogs
 347 --------
 348 o  <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
 349
 350 Pcmciautils
 351 -----------
 352 o  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
 353
 354 Quota-tools
 355 ----------
 356 o  <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
 357
 358 DocBook Stylesheets
 359 -------------------
 360 o  <http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/docbook-dsssl/>
 361
 362 XMLTO XSLT Frontend
 363 -------------------
 364 o  <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/>
 365
 366 Intel P6 microcode
 367 ------------------
 368 o  <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
 369
 370 udev
 371 ----
 372 o <http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
 373
 374 FUSE
 375 ----
 376 o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
 377
 378 mcelog
 379 ------
 380 o <http://www.mcelog.org/>
 381
 382 Networking
 383 **********
 384
 385 PPP
 386 ---
 387 o  <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
 388
 389 Isdn4k-utils
 390 ------------
 391 o  <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
 392
 393 NFS-utils
 394 ---------
 395 o  <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
 396
 397 Iptables
 398 --------
 399 o  <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
 400
 401 Ip-route2
 402 ---------
 403 o  <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
 404
 405 OProfile
 406 --------
 407 o  <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
 408
 409 NFS-Utils
 410 ---------
 411 o  <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>