=====
This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
-software necessary to run the 2.6 kernels, as well as provide brief
-instructions regarding any other "Gotchas" users may encounter when
-trying life on the Bleeding Edge. If upgrading from a pre-2.4.x
-kernel, please consult the Changes file included with 2.4.x kernels for
-additional information; most of that information will not be repeated
-here. Basically, this document assumes that your system is already
-functional and running at least 2.4.x kernels.
+software necessary to run the 3.0 kernels.
This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
running, the suggested command should tell you.
-Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already
-functionally running a Linux 2.4 kernel. Also, not all tools are
-necessary on all systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN
-hardware, for example, you probably needn't concern yourself with
-isdn4k-utils.
+Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
+running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all
+systems; obviously, if you don't have any ISDN hardware, for example,
+you probably needn't concern yourself with isdn4k-utils.
o Gnu C 3.2 # gcc --version
-o Gnu make 3.79.1 # make --version
+o Gnu make 3.80 # make --version
o binutils 2.12 # ld -v
o util-linux 2.10o # fdformat --version
o module-init-tools 0.9.10 # depmod -V
-o e2fsprogs 1.29 # tune2fs
+o e2fsprogs 1.41.4 # e2fsck -V
o jfsutils 1.1.3 # fsck.jfs -V
-o reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 # reiserfsck -V 2>&1|grep reiserfsprogs
+o reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 # reiserfsck -V
o xfsprogs 2.6.0 # xfs_db -V
-o pcmciautils 004
-o pcmcia-cs 3.1.21 # cardmgr -V
+o squashfs-tools 4.0 # mksquashfs -version
+o btrfs-progs 0.18 # btrfsck
+o pcmciautils 004 # pccardctl -V
o quota-tools 3.09 # quota -V
o PPP 2.4.0 # pppd --version
o isdn4k-utils 3.1pre1 # isdnctrl 2>&1|grep version
o nfs-utils 1.0.5 # showmount --version
o procps 3.2.0 # ps --version
o oprofile 0.9 # oprofiled --version
-o udev 071 # udevinfo -V
+o udev 081 # udevd --version
+o grub 0.93 # grub --version || grub-install --version
+o mcelog 0.6 # mcelog --version
+o iptables 1.4.2 # iptables -V
+
Kernel compilation
==================
Make
----
-You will need Gnu make 3.79.1 or later to build the kernel.
+You will need Gnu make 3.80 or later to build the kernel.
Binutils
--------
your kernel. This change does, however, mean that you need a recent
release of binutils.
+Perl
+----
+
+You will need perl 5 and the following modules: Getopt::Long, Getopt::Std,
+File::Basename, and File::Find to build the kernel.
+
+
System utilities
================
If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
-In the 2.6 kernel it is generally preferred to build the kernel with
-CONFIG_KALLSYMS so that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is
-(this also produces better output than ksymoops).
-If for some reason your kernel is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and
-you have no way to rebuild and reproduce the Oops with that option, then
-you can still decode that Oops with ksymoops.
+It is generally preferred to build the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS so
+that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
+produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel
+is not build with CONFIG_KALLSYMS and you have no way to rebuild and
+reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
+with ksymoops.
Module-Init-Tools
-----------------
--------------------
A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
-accessible as both a devfs regular file and as a normal (misc)
-character device. If you are not using devfs you may need to:
+accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
+udev you may need to:
mkdir /dev/cpu
mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
udev
----
udev is a userspace application for populating /dev dynamically with
-only entries for devices actually present. udev replaces devfs.
+only entries for devices actually present. udev replaces the basic
+functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
+devices.
FUSE
----
enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP,
upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
-If you are not using devfs, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
+If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
which can be made by:
mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
as root.
-If you use devfsd and build ppp support as modules, you will need
-the following in your /etc/devfsd.conf file:
-
-LOOKUP PPP MODLOAD
-
Isdn4k-utils
------------
NFS-utils
---------
-In 2.4 and earlier kernels, the nfs server needed to know about any
-client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
+In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
+about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
information would be given to the kernel by "mountd" when the client
mounted the filesystem, or by "exportfs" at system startup. exportfs
would take information about active clients from /var/lib/nfs/rmtab.
fail-over. Even when the system is working well, rmtab suffers from
getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
-With 2.6 we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd when it
-gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give appropriate
-export information to the kernel. This removes the dependency on
-rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about currently
-active clients.
+With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
+when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
+appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the
+dependency on rmtab and means that the kernel only needs to know about
+currently active clients.
To enable this new functionality, you need to:
- mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfs
+ mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
that is possible.
+mcelog
+------
+
+In Linux 2.6.31+ the i386 kernel needs to run the mcelog utility
+as a regular cronjob similar to the x86-64 kernel to process and log
+machine check events when CONFIG_X86_NEW_MCE is enabled. Machine check
+events are errors reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
+All x86-64 kernels since 2.6.4 require the mcelog utility to
+process machine checks.
+
Getting updated software
========================
Mkinitrd
--------
-o <ftp://rawhide.redhat.com/pub/rawhide/SRPMS/SRPMS/>
+o <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
E2fsprogs
---------
Reiserfsprogs
-------------
-o <http://www.namesys.com/pub/reiserfsprogs/reiserfsprogs-3.6.3.tar.gz>
+o <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/reiserfs/>
Xfsprogs
--------
-o <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/download/>
+o <ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/>
Pcmciautils
-----------
----
o <http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse>
+mcelog
+------
+o <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/cpu/mce/>
+
Networking
**********
PPP
---
-o <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/ppp-2.4.0.tar.gz>
+o <ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
Isdn4k-utils
------------
-o <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/isdn4k-utils.v3.1pre1.tar.gz>
+o <ftp://ftp.isdn4linux.de/pub/isdn4linux/utils/>
NFS-utils
---------