1Intro 2===== 3 4This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of 5software necessary to run the 3.0 kernels. 6 7This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels 8and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch, 9Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the 10'net). 11 12Current Minimal Requirements 13============================ 14 15Upgrade to at *least* these software revisions before thinking you've 16encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently 17running, the suggested command should tell you. 18 19Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally 20running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all 21systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example, 22you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils. 23 24o Gnu C 3.2 # gcc --version 25o Gnu make 3.80 # make --version 26o binutils 2.12 # ld -v 27o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version 28o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V 29o e2fsprogs 1.41.4 # e2fsck -V 30o jfsutils 1.1.3 # fsck.jfs -V 31o reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 # reiserfsck -V 32o xfsprogs 2.6.0 # xfs_db -V 33o squashfs-tools 4.0 # mksquashfs -version 34o btrfs-progs 0.18 # btrfsck 35o pcmciautils 004 # pccardctl -V 36o quota-tools 3.09 # quota -V 37o PPP 2.4.0 # pppd --version 38o isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 # isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version 39o nfs-utils 1.0.5 # showmount --version 40o procps 3.2.0 # ps --version 41o oprofile 0.9 # oprofiled --version 42o udev 081 # udevd --version 43o grub 0.93 # grub --version || grub-install --version 44o mcelog 0.6 # mcelog --version 45o iptables 1.4.2 # iptables -V 46 47 48Kernel compilation 49================== 50 51GCC 52--- 53 54The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your 55computer. 56 57Make 58---- 59 60You will need Gnu make 3.80 or later to build the kernel. 61 62Binutils 63-------- 64 65Linux on IA-32 has recently switched from using as86 to using gas for 66assembling the 16-bit boot code, removing the need for as86 to compile 67your kernel. This change does, however, mean that you need a recent 68release of binutils. 69 70Perl 71---- 72 73You will need perl 5 and the following modules: Getopt::Long, Getopt::Std, 74File::Basename, and File::Find to build the kernel. 75 76 77System utilities 78================ 79 80Architectural changes 81--------------------- 82 83DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev 84(http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/) 85 8632-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun! 87 88Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline 89documentation via specially-formatted comments near their 90definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with the 91SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook 92files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript, 93HTML, PDF files, and several other formats. In order to convert from 94DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as 95well as the desired DocBook stylesheets. 96 97Util-linux 98---------- 99 100New versions of util-linux provide *fdisk support for larger disks, 101support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition 102types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies. 103You'll probably want to upgrade. 104 105Ksymoops 106-------- 107 108If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the 109ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't. 110It is generally preferred to build the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS so 111that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also 112produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel 113is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and you have no way to rebuild and 114reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops 115with ksymoops. 116 117Module-Init-Tools 118----------------- 119 120A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires module-init-tools 121to use. It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels. 122 123Mkinitrd 124-------- 125 126These changes to the /lib/modules file tree layout also require that 127mkinitrd be upgraded. 128 129E2fsprogs 130--------- 131 132The latest version of e2fsprogs fixes several bugs in fsck and 133debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade. 134 135JFSutils 136-------- 137 138The jfsutils package contains the utilities for the file system. 139The following utilities are available: 140o fsck.jfs - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check 141 and repair a JFS formatted partition. 142o mkfs.jfs - create a JFS formatted partition. 143o other file system utilities are also available in this package. 144 145Reiserfsprogs 146------------- 147 148The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x 149(Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working 150versions of mkreiserfs, resize_reiserfs, debugreiserfs and 151reiserfsck. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms. 152 153Xfsprogs 154-------- 155 156The latest version of xfsprogs contains mkfs.xfs, xfs_db, and the 157xfs_repair utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is 158architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should 159work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or 160later is recommended, due to some significant improvements). 161 162PCMCIAutils 163----------- 164 165PCMCIAutils replaces pcmcia-cs (see below). It properly sets up 166PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules 167for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug 168subsystem is used. 169 170Pcmcia-cs 171--------- 172 173PCMCIA (PC Card) support is now partially implemented in the main 174kernel source. The "pcmciautils" package (see above) replaces pcmcia-cs 175for newest kernels. 176 177Quota-tools 178----------- 179 180Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use 181the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and 182newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer 183from the table above. 184 185Intel IA32 microcode 186-------------------- 187 188A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode, 189accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using 190udev you may need to: 191 192mkdir /dev/cpu 193mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184 194chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode 195 196as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to 197get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this. 198 199Powertweak 200---------- 201 202If you are running v0.1.17 or earlier, you should upgrade to 203version v0.99.0 or higher. Running old versions may cause problems 204with programs using shared memory. 205 206udev 207---- 208udev is a userspace application for populating /dev dynamically with 209only entries for devices actually present. udev replaces the basic 210functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for 211devices. 212 213FUSE 214---- 215 216Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount 217options 'direct_io' and 'kernel_cache' won't work. 218 219Networking 220========== 221 222General changes 223--------------- 224 225If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably 226consider using the network tools from ip-route2. 227 228Packet Filter / NAT 229------------------- 230The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x 231kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules 232for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm. 233 234PPP 235--- 236 237The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to 238enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP, 239upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0. 240 241If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp 242which can be made by: 243 244mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0 245 246as root. 247 248Isdn4k-utils 249------------ 250 251Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils 252needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded. 253 254NFS-utils 255--------- 256 257In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know 258about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This 259information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client 260mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup. exportfs 261would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab. 262 263This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct 264which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement 265fail-over. Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from 266getting lots of old entries that never get removed. 267 268With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd 269when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give 270appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the 271dependency on rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about 272currently active clients. 273 274To enable this new functionality, you need to: 275 276 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd 277 278before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS 279services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where 280that is possible. 281 282mcelog 283------ 284 285In Linux 2.6.31+ the i386 kernel needs to run the mcelog utility 286as a regular cronjob similar to the x86-64 kernel to process and log 287machine check events when CONFIG_X86_NEW_MCE is enabled. Machine check 288events are errors reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged. 289All x86-64 kernels since 2.6.4 require the mcelog utility to 290process machine checks. 291 292Getting updated software 293======================== 294 295Kernel compilation 296****************** 297 298gcc 299--- 300o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/> 301 302Make 303---- 304o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/> 305 306Binutils 307-------- 308o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/> 309 310System utilities 311**************** 312 313Util-linux 314---------- 315o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/> 316 317Ksymoops 318-------- 319o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/> 320 321Module-Init-Tools 322----------------- 323o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/> 324 325Mkinitrd 326-------- 327o <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main> 328 329E2fsprogs 330--------- 331o <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz> 332 333JFSutils 334-------- 335o <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/> 336 337Reiserfsprogs 338------------- 339o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/> 340 341Xfsprogs 342-------- 343o <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/> 344 345Pcmciautils 346----------- 347o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/> 348 349Pcmcia-cs 350--------- 351o <http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/> 352 353Quota-tools 354---------- 355o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/> 356 357DocBook Stylesheets 358------------------- 359o <http://nwalsh.com/docbook/dsssl/> 360 361XMLTO XSLT Frontend 362------------------- 363o <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/> 364 365Intel P6 microcode 366------------------ 367o <http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/> 368 369Powertweak 370---------- 371o <http://powertweak.sourceforge.net/> 372 373udev 374---- 375o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html> 376 377FUSE 378---- 379o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse> 380 381mcelog 382------ 383o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/cpu/mce/> 384 385Networking 386********** 387 388PPP 389--- 390o <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/> 391 392Isdn4k-utils 393------------ 394o <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/> 395 396NFS-utils 397--------- 398o <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14> 399 400Iptables 401-------- 402o <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html> 403 404Ip-route2 405--------- 406o <ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/ip-routing/iproute2-2.2.4-now-ss991023.tar.gz> 407 408OProfile 409-------- 410o <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/> 411 412NFS-Utils 413--------- 414o <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/> 415 416