4 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
5 software necessary to run the 2.6 kernels, as well as provide brief
6 instructions regarding any other "Gotchas" users may encounter when
7 trying life on the Bleeding Edge. If upgrading from a pre-2.4.x
8 kernel, please consult the Changes file included with 2.4.x kernels for
9 additional information; most of that information will not be repeated
10 here. Basically, this document assumes that your system is already
11 functional and running at least 2.4.x kernels.
13 This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
14 and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
15 Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
18 Current Minimal Requirements
19 ============================
21 Upgrade to at *least* these software revisions before thinking you've
22 encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
23 running, the suggested command should tell you.
25 Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already
26 functionally running a Linux 2.4 kernel. Also, not all tools are
27 necessary on all systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN
28 hardware, for example, you probably needn't concern yourself with
31 o Gnu C 3.2 # gcc --version
32 o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
33 o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
34 o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
35 o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
36 o e2fsprogs 1.29 # tune2fs
37 o jfsutils 1.1.3 # fsck.jfs -V
38 o reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 # reiserfsck -V 2>&1|grep reiserfsprogs
39 o xfsprogs 2.6.0 # xfs_db -V
40 o pcmciautils 004 # pccardctl -V
41 o quota-tools 3.09 # quota -V
42 o PPP 2.4.0 # pppd --version
43 o isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 # isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
44 o nfs-utils 1.0.5 # showmount --version
45 o procps 3.2.0 # ps --version
46 o oprofile 0.9 # oprofiled --version
47 o udev 081 # udevinfo -V
48 o grub 0.93 # grub --version
56 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
62 You will need Gnu make 3.79.1 or later to build the kernel.
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
78 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
79 (http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
81 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun!
83 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
84 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
85 definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with the
86 SGML templates in the Documentation/DocBook directory to make DocBook
87 files, which can then be converted by DocBook stylesheets to PostScript,
88 HTML, PDF files, and several other formats. In order to convert from
89 DocBook format to a format of your choice, you'll need to install Jade as
90 well as the desired DocBook stylesheets.
95 New versions of util-linux provide *fdisk support for larger disks,
96 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
97 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
98 You'll probably want to upgrade.
103 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
104 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
105 In the 2.6 kernel it is generally preferred to build the kernel with
106 CONFIG_KALLSYMS so that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is
107 (this also produces better output than ksymoops).
108 If for some reason your kernel is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and
109 you have no way to rebuild and reproduce the Oops with that option, then
110 you can still decode that Oops with ksymoops.
115 A new module loader is now in the kernel that requires module-init-tools
116 to use. It is backward compatible with the 2.4.x series kernels.
121 These changes to the /lib/modules file tree layout also require that
122 mkinitrd be upgraded.
127 The latest version of e2fsprogs fixes several bugs in fsck and
128 debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
133 The jfsutils package contains the utilities for the file system.
134 The following utilities are available:
135 o fsck.jfs - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
136 and repair a JFS formatted partition.
137 o mkfs.jfs - create a JFS formatted partition.
138 o other file system utilities are also available in this package.
143 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
144 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
145 versions of mkreiserfs, resize_reiserfs, debugreiserfs and
146 reiserfsck. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
151 The latest version of xfsprogs contains mkfs.xfs, xfs_db, and the
152 xfs_repair utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is
153 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
154 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
155 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
160 PCMCIAutils replaces pcmcia-cs (see below). It properly sets up
161 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
162 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
168 PCMCIA (PC Card) support is now partially implemented in the main
169 kernel source. The "pcmciautils" package (see above) replaces pcmcia-cs
175 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
176 the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and
177 newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer
178 from the table above.
183 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
184 accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
185 udev you may need to:
188 mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
189 chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
191 as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to
192 get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
197 If you are running v0.1.17 or earlier, you should upgrade to
198 version v0.99.0 or higher. Running old versions may cause problems
199 with programs using shared memory.
203 udev is a userspace application for populating /dev dynamically with
204 only entries for devices actually present. udev replaces the basic
205 functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
211 Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
212 options 'direct_io' and 'kernel_cache' won't work.
220 If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
221 consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
225 The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
226 kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
227 for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
232 The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
233 enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP,
234 upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
236 If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
237 which can be made by:
239 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
246 Due to changes in the length of the phone number field, isdn4k-utils
247 needs to be recompiled or (preferably) upgraded.
252 In 2.4 and earlier kernels, the nfs server needed to know about any
253 client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
254 information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client
255 mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup. exportfs
256 would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab.
258 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
259 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
260 fail-over. Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from
261 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
263 With 2.6 we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd when it
264 gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give appropriate
265 export information to the kernel. This removes the dependency on
266 rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about currently
269 To enable this new functionality, you need to:
271 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
273 before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
274 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
277 Getting updated software
278 ========================
285 o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
289 o <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
293 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
300 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
304 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
308 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/>
312 o <ftp://rawhide.redhat.com/pub/rawhide/SRPMS/SRPMS/>
316 o <http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/e2fsprogs/e2fsprogs-1.29.tar.gz>
320 o <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
324 o <http://www.namesys.com/pub/reiserfsprogs/reiserfsprogs-3.6.3.tar.gz>
328 o <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/download/>
332 o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
336 o <http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/>
340 o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
344 o <http://nwalsh.com/docbook/dsssl/>
348 o <http://cyberelk.net/tim/xmlto/>
352 o <http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/>
356 o <http://powertweak.sourceforge.net/>
360 o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html>
364 o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
371 o <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/ppp-2.4.0.tar.gz>
375 o <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/isdn4k-utils.v3.1pre1.tar.gz>
379 o <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
383 o <http://www.iptables.org/downloads.html>
387 o <ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/ip-routing/iproute2-2.2.4-now-ss991023.tar.gz>
391 o <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
395 o <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
projects / linux-2.6 / blob