xref: /linux/Documentation/Changes (revision 905e46acd3272d04566fec49afbd7ad9e2ed9ae3)
1.. _changes:
2
3Minimal requirements to compile the Kernel
4++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5
6Intro
7=====
8
9This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
10software necessary to run the 4.x kernels.
11
12This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
13and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
14Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
15'net).
16
17Current Minimal Requirements
18****************************
19
20Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've
21encountered a bug!  If you're unsure what version you're currently
22running, the suggested command should tell you.
23
24Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
25running a Linux kernel.  Also, not all tools are necessary on all
26systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
27you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.
28
29====================== ===============  ========================================
30        Program        Minimal version       Command to check the version
31====================== ===============  ========================================
32GNU C                  3.2              gcc --version
33GNU make               3.81             make --version
34binutils               2.12             ld -v
35util-linux             2.10o            fdformat --version
36module-init-tools      0.9.10           depmod -V
37e2fsprogs              1.41.4           e2fsck -V
38jfsutils               1.1.3            fsck.jfs -V
39reiserfsprogs          3.6.3            reiserfsck -V
40xfsprogs               2.6.0            xfs_db -V
41squashfs-tools         4.0              mksquashfs -version
42btrfs-progs            0.18             btrfsck
43pcmciautils            004              pccardctl -V
44quota-tools            3.09             quota -V
45PPP                    2.4.0            pppd --version
46isdn4k-utils           3.1pre1          isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
47nfs-utils              1.0.5            showmount --version
48procps                 3.2.0            ps --version
49oprofile               0.9              oprofiled --version
50udev                   081              udevd --version
51grub                   0.93             grub --version || grub-install --version
52mcelog                 0.6              mcelog --version
53iptables               1.4.2            iptables -V
54openssl & libcrypto    1.0.0            openssl version
55bc                     1.06.95          bc --version
56Sphinx\ [#f1]_	       1.2		sphinx-build --version
57====================== ===============  ========================================
58
59.. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation
60
61Kernel compilation
62******************
63
64GCC
65---
66
67The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
68computer.
69
70Make
71----
72
73You will need GNU make 3.81 or later to build the kernel.
74
75Binutils
76--------
77
78Linux on IA-32 has recently switched from using ``as86`` to using ``gas`` for
79assembling the 16-bit boot code, removing the need for ``as86`` to compile
80your kernel.  This change does, however, mean that you need a recent
81release of binutils.
82
83Perl
84----
85
86You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``,
87``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel.
88
89BC
90--
91
92You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
93
94
95OpenSSL
96-------
97
98Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
99crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
100
101You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
102enabled.  You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
103and higher.
104
105
106System utilities
107****************
108
109Architectural changes
110---------------------
111
112DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
113(http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
114
11532-bit UID support is now in place.  Have fun!
116
117Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
118documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
119definitions in the source.  These comments can be combined with the
120SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook
121files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript,
122HTML, PDF files, and several other formats.  In order to convert from
123DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as
124well as the desired DocBook stylesheets.
125
126Util-linux
127----------
128
129New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks,
130support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
131types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
132You'll probably want to upgrade.
133
134Ksymoops
135--------
136
137If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
138ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
139It is generally preferred to build the kernel with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` so
140that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
141produces better output than ksymoops).  If for some reason your kernel
142is not build with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` and you have no way to rebuild and
143reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
144with ksymoops.
145
146Module-Init-Tools
147-----------------
148
149A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires ``module-init-tools``
150to use.  It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
151
152Mkinitrd
153--------
154
155These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that
156mkinitrd be upgraded.
157
158E2fsprogs
159---------
160
161The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and
162debugfs.  Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
163
164JFSutils
165--------
166
167The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system.
168The following utilities are available:
169
170- ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
171  and repair a JFS formatted partition.
172
173- ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition.
174
175- other file system utilities are also available in this package.
176
177Reiserfsprogs
178-------------
179
180The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
181(Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
182versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and
183``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
184
185Xfsprogs
186--------
187
188The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the
189``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem.  It is
190architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
191work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
192later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
193
194PCMCIAutils
195-----------
196
197PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up
198PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
199for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
200subsystem is used.
201
202Quota-tools
203-----------
204
205Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
206the newer version 2 quota format.  Quota-tools version 3.07 and
207newer has this support.  Use the recommended version or newer
208from the table above.
209
210Intel IA32 microcode
211--------------------
212
213A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
214accessible as a normal (misc) character device.  If you are not using
215udev you may need to::
216
217  mkdir /dev/cpu
218  mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
219  chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
220
221as root before you can use this.  You'll probably also want to
222get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
223
224udev
225----
226
227``udev`` is a userspace application for populating ``/dev`` dynamically with
228only entries for devices actually present. ``udev`` replaces the basic
229functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
230devices.
231
232FUSE
233----
234
235Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later.  Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
236options ``direct_io`` and ``kernel_cache`` won't work.
237
238Networking
239**********
240
241General changes
242---------------
243
244If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
245consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
246
247Packet Filter / NAT
248-------------------
249The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
250kernel series (iptables).  It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
251for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
252
253PPP
254---
255
256The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
257enable it to operate over diverse media layers.  If you use PPP,
258upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
259
260If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
261which can be made by::
262
263  mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
264
265as root.
266
267Isdn4k-utils
268------------
269
270Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
271needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
272
273NFS-utils
274---------
275
276In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
277about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS.  This
278information would be given to the kernel by ``mountd`` when the client
279mounted the filesystem, or by ``exportfs`` at system startup.  exportfs
280would take information about active clients from ``/var/lib/nfs/rmtab``.
281
282This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
283which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
284fail-over.  Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from
285getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
286
287With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
288when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
289appropriate export information to the kernel.  This removes the
290dependency on ``rmtab`` and means that the kernel only needs to know about
291currently active clients.
292
293To enable this new functionality, you need to::
294
295  mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
296
297before running exportfs or mountd.  It is recommended that all NFS
298services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
299that is possible.
300
301mcelog
302------
303
304On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
305events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors
306reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
307
308Kernel documentation
309********************
310
311Sphinx
312------
313
314The ReST markups currently used by the Documentation/ files are meant to be
315built with ``Sphinx`` version 1.2 or upper. If you're desiring to build
316PDF outputs, it is recommended to use version 1.4.6.
317
318.. note::
319
320  Please notice that, for PDF and LaTeX output, you'll also need ``XeLaTeX``
321  version 3.14159265. Depending on the distribution, you may also need to
322  install a series of ``texlive`` packages that provide the minimal set of
323  functionalities required for ``XeLaTex`` to work. For PDF output you'll also
324  need ``convert(1)`` from ImageMagick (https://www.imagemagick.org).
325
326Other tools
327-----------
328
329In order to produce documentation from DocBook, you'll also need ``xmlto``.
330Please notice, however, that we're currently migrating all documents to use
331``Sphinx``.
332
333Getting updated software
334========================
335
336Kernel compilation
337******************
338
339gcc
340---
341
342- <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
343
344Make
345----
346
347- <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
348
349Binutils
350--------
351
352- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
353
354OpenSSL
355-------
356
357- <https://www.openssl.org/>
358
359System utilities
360****************
361
362Util-linux
363----------
364
365- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
366
367Ksymoops
368--------
369
370- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
371
372Module-Init-Tools
373-----------------
374
375- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/>
376
377Mkinitrd
378--------
379
380- <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
381
382E2fsprogs
383---------
384
385- <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
386
387JFSutils
388--------
389
390- <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
391
392Reiserfsprogs
393-------------
394
395- <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
396
397Xfsprogs
398--------
399
400- <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
401
402Pcmciautils
403-----------
404
405- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
406
407Quota-tools
408-----------
409
410- <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
411
412DocBook Stylesheets
413-------------------
414
415- <http://sourceforge.net/projects/docbook/files/docbook-dsssl/>
416
417XMLTO XSLT Frontend
418-------------------
419
420- <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/>
421
422Intel P6 microcode
423------------------
424
425- <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
426
427udev
428----
429
430- <http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
431
432FUSE
433----
434
435- <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
436
437mcelog
438------
439
440- <http://www.mcelog.org/>
441
442Networking
443**********
444
445PPP
446---
447
448- <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
449
450Isdn4k-utils
451------------
452
453- <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
454
455NFS-utils
456---------
457
458- <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
459
460Iptables
461--------
462
463- <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
464
465Ip-route2
466---------
467
468- <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
469
470OProfile
471--------
472
473- <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
474
475NFS-Utils
476---------
477
478- <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
479
480Kernel documentation
481********************
482
483Sphinx
484------
485
486- <http://www.sphinx-doc.org/>
487