3 Minimal requirements to compile the Kernel
4 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
10 software necessary to run the 4.x kernels.
12 This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
13 and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
14 Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
17 Current Minimal Requirements
18 ****************************
20 Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've
21 encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
22 running, the suggested command should tell you.
24 Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
25 running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all
26 systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
27 you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.
29 ====================== =============== ========================================
30 Program Minimal version Command to check the version
31 ====================== =============== ========================================
32 GNU C 3.2 gcc --version
33 GNU make 3.81 make --version
35 util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version
36 module-init-tools 0.9.10 depmod -V
37 e2fsprogs 1.41.4 e2fsck -V
38 jfsutils 1.1.3 fsck.jfs -V
39 reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 reiserfsck -V
40 xfsprogs 2.6.0 xfs_db -V
41 squashfs-tools 4.0 mksquashfs -version
42 btrfs-progs 0.18 btrfsck
43 pcmciautils 004 pccardctl -V
44 quota-tools 3.09 quota -V
45 PPP 2.4.0 pppd --version
46 isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
47 nfs-utils 1.0.5 showmount --version
48 procps 3.2.0 ps --version
49 oprofile 0.9 oprofiled --version
50 udev 081 udevd --version
51 grub 0.93 grub --version || grub-install --version
52 mcelog 0.6 mcelog --version
53 iptables 1.4.2 iptables -V
54 openssl & libcrypto 1.0.0 openssl version
55 bc 1.06.95 bc --version
56 Sphinx\ [#f1]_ 1.3 sphinx-build --version
57 ====================== =============== ========================================
59 .. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation
67 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
73 You will need GNU make 3.81 or later to build the kernel.
78 The build system has, as of 4.13, switched to using thin archives (`ar T`)
79 rather than incremental linking (`ld -r`) for built-in.o intermediate steps.
80 This requires binutils 2.20 or newer.
85 You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``,
86 ``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel.
91 You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
97 Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
98 crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
100 You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
101 enabled. You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
108 Architectural changes
109 ---------------------
111 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
112 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
114 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun!
116 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
117 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
118 definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with ReST
119 files the Documentation/ directory to make enriched documentation, which can
120 then be converted to PostScript, HTML, LaTex, ePUB and PDF files.
121 In order to convert from ReST format to a format of your choice, you'll need
127 New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks,
128 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
129 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
130 You'll probably want to upgrade.
135 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
136 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
137 It is generally preferred to build the kernel with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` so
138 that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
139 produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel
140 is not build with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` and you have no way to rebuild and
141 reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
147 A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires ``module-init-tools``
148 to use. It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
153 These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that
154 mkinitrd be upgraded.
159 The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and
160 debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
165 The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system.
166 The following utilities are available:
168 - ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
169 and repair a JFS formatted partition.
171 - ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition.
173 - other file system utilities are also available in this package.
178 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
179 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
180 versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and
181 ``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
186 The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the
187 ``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is
188 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
189 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
190 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
195 PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up
196 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
197 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
203 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
204 the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and
205 newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer
206 from the table above.
211 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
212 accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
213 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::
261 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
268 Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
269 needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
274 In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
275 about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
276 information would be given to the kernel by ``mountd`` when the client
277 mounted the filesystem, or by ``exportfs`` at system startup. exportfs
278 would take information about active clients from ``/var/lib/nfs/rmtab``.
280 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
281 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
282 fail-over. Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from
283 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
285 With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
286 when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
287 appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the
288 dependency on ``rmtab`` and means that the kernel only needs to know about
289 currently active clients.
291 To enable this new functionality, you need to::
293 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
295 before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
296 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
302 On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
303 events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors
304 reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
312 Please see :ref:`sphinx_install` in ``Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst``
313 for details about Sphinx requirements.
315 Getting updated software
316 ========================
324 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
329 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
334 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
339 - <https://www.openssl.org/>
347 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
352 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
357 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/>
362 - <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
367 - <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
372 - <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
377 - <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
382 - <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
387 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
392 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
398 - <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
403 - <http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
408 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
413 - <http://www.mcelog.org/>
421 - <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
426 - <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
431 - <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
436 - <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
441 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
446 - <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
451 - <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
459 - <http://www.sphinx-doc.org/>
git.samba.org / sfrench / cifs-2.6.git / blob