| .. _changes: |
| |
| Minimal requirements to compile the Kernel |
| ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
| |
| Intro |
| ===== |
| |
| This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of |
| software necessary to run the current kernel version. |
| |
| 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, |
| Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the |
| 'net). |
| |
| Current Minimal Requirements |
| **************************** |
| |
| Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've |
| 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 kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all |
| systems; obviously, if you don't have any PC Card hardware, for example, |
| you probably needn't concern yourself with pcmciautils. |
| |
| ====================== =============== ======================================== |
| Program Minimal version Command to check the version |
| ====================== =============== ======================================== |
| GNU C 5.1 gcc --version |
| Clang/LLVM (optional) 11.0.0 clang --version |
| Rust (optional) 1.74.1 rustc --version |
| bindgen (optional) 0.65.1 bindgen --version |
| GNU make 3.82 make --version |
| bash 4.2 bash --version |
| binutils 2.25 ld -v |
| flex 2.5.35 flex --version |
| bison 2.0 bison --version |
| pahole 1.16 pahole --version |
| util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version |
| kmod 13 depmod -V |
| e2fsprogs 1.41.4 e2fsck -V |
| jfsutils 1.1.3 fsck.jfs -V |
| reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 reiserfsck -V |
| xfsprogs 2.6.0 xfs_db -V |
| squashfs-tools 4.0 mksquashfs -version |
| btrfs-progs 0.18 btrfsck |
| pcmciautils 004 pccardctl -V |
| quota-tools 3.09 quota -V |
| PPP 2.4.0 pppd --version |
| nfs-utils 1.0.5 showmount --version |
| procps 3.2.0 ps --version |
| udev 081 udevd --version |
| grub 0.93 grub --version || grub-install --version |
| mcelog 0.6 mcelog --version |
| iptables 1.4.2 iptables -V |
| openssl & libcrypto 1.0.0 openssl version |
| bc 1.06.95 bc --version |
| Sphinx\ [#f1]_ 1.7 sphinx-build --version |
| cpio any cpio --version |
| GNU tar 1.28 tar --version |
| gtags (optional) 6.6.5 gtags --version |
| ====================== =============== ======================================== |
| |
| .. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation |
| |
| Kernel compilation |
| ****************** |
| |
| GCC |
| --- |
| |
| The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your |
| computer. |
| |
| Clang/LLVM (optional) |
| --------------------- |
| |
| The latest formal release of clang and LLVM utils (according to |
| `releases.llvm.org <https://releases.llvm.org>`_) are supported for building |
| kernels. Older releases aren't guaranteed to work, and we may drop workarounds |
| from the kernel that were used to support older versions. Please see additional |
| docs on :ref:`Building Linux with Clang/LLVM <kbuild_llvm>`. |
| |
| Rust (optional) |
| --------------- |
| |
| A particular version of the Rust toolchain is required. Newer versions may or |
| may not work because the kernel depends on some unstable Rust features, for |
| the moment. |
| |
| Each Rust toolchain comes with several "components", some of which are required |
| (like ``rustc``) and some that are optional. The ``rust-src`` component (which |
| is optional) needs to be installed to build the kernel. Other components are |
| useful for developing. |
| |
| Please see Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst for instructions on how to |
| satisfy the build requirements of Rust support. In particular, the ``Makefile`` |
| target ``rustavailable`` is useful to check why the Rust toolchain may not |
| be detected. |
| |
| bindgen (optional) |
| ------------------ |
| |
| ``bindgen`` is used to generate the Rust bindings to the C side of the kernel. |
| It depends on ``libclang``. |
| |
| Make |
| ---- |
| |
| You will need GNU make 3.82 or later to build the kernel. |
| |
| Bash |
| ---- |
| |
| Some bash scripts are used for the kernel build. |
| Bash 4.2 or newer is needed. |
| |
| Binutils |
| -------- |
| |
| Binutils 2.25 or newer is needed to build the kernel. |
| |
| pkg-config |
| ---------- |
| |
| The build system, as of 4.18, requires pkg-config to check for installed |
| kconfig tools and to determine flags settings for use in |
| 'make {g,x}config'. Previously pkg-config was being used but not |
| verified or documented. |
| |
| Flex |
| ---- |
| |
| Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates lexical analyzers |
| during build. This requires flex 2.5.35 or later. |
| |
| |
| Bison |
| ----- |
| |
| Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates parsers |
| during build. This requires bison 2.0 or later. |
| |
| pahole: |
| ------- |
| |
| Since Linux 5.2, if CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF is selected, the build system |
| generates BTF (BPF Type Format) from DWARF in vmlinux, a bit later from kernel |
| modules as well. This requires pahole v1.16 or later. |
| |
| It is found in the 'dwarves' or 'pahole' distro packages or from |
| https://fedorapeople.org/~acme/dwarves/. |
| |
| Perl |
| ---- |
| |
| You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``, |
| ``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel. |
| |
| BC |
| -- |
| |
| You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher |
| |
| |
| OpenSSL |
| ------- |
| |
| Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and |
| crypto library to do key creation and signature generation. |
| |
| You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is |
| enabled. You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3 |
| and higher. |
| |
| Tar |
| --- |
| |
| GNU tar is needed if you want to enable access to the kernel headers via sysfs |
| (CONFIG_IKHEADERS). |
| |
| gtags / GNU GLOBAL (optional) |
| ----------------------------- |
| |
| The kernel build requires GNU GLOBAL version 6.6.5 or later to generate |
| tag files through ``make gtags``. This is due to its use of the gtags |
| ``-C (--directory)`` flag. |
| |
| System utilities |
| **************** |
| |
| Architectural changes |
| --------------------- |
| |
| DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev |
| (https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/) |
| |
| 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun! |
| |
| Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline |
| documentation via specially-formatted comments near their |
| definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with ReST |
| files the Documentation/ directory to make enriched documentation, which can |
| then be converted to PostScript, HTML, LaTex, ePUB and PDF files. |
| In order to convert from ReST format to a format of your choice, you'll need |
| Sphinx. |
| |
| Util-linux |
| ---------- |
| |
| New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks, |
| support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition |
| types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies. |
| You'll probably want to upgrade. |
| |
| Ksymoops |
| -------- |
| |
| If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the |
| ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't. |
| 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. |
| |
| Mkinitrd |
| -------- |
| |
| These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that |
| mkinitrd be upgraded. |
| |
| E2fsprogs |
| --------- |
| |
| The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and |
| debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade. |
| |
| JFSutils |
| -------- |
| |
| The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system. |
| The following utilities are available: |
| |
| - ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check |
| and repair a JFS formatted partition. |
| |
| - ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition. |
| |
| - other file system utilities are also available in this package. |
| |
| Reiserfsprogs |
| ------------- |
| |
| The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x |
| (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working |
| versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and |
| ``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms. |
| |
| Xfsprogs |
| -------- |
| |
| The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the |
| ``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is |
| architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should |
| work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or |
| later is recommended, due to some significant improvements). |
| |
| PCMCIAutils |
| ----------- |
| |
| PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up |
| PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules |
| for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug |
| subsystem is used. |
| |
| Quota-tools |
| ----------- |
| |
| Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use |
| the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and |
| newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer |
| from the table above. |
| |
| Intel IA32 microcode |
| -------------------- |
| |
| A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode, |
| 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 |
| chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode |
| |
| as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to |
| get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this. |
| |
| udev |
| ---- |
| |
| ``udev`` is a userspace application for populating ``/dev`` dynamically with |
| only entries for devices actually present. ``udev`` replaces the basic |
| functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for |
| devices. |
| |
| FUSE |
| ---- |
| |
| Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount |
| options ``direct_io`` and ``kernel_cache`` won't work. |
| |
| Networking |
| ********** |
| |
| General changes |
| --------------- |
| |
| If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably |
| consider using the network tools from ip-route2. |
| |
| Packet Filter / NAT |
| ------------------- |
| The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x |
| kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules |
| for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm. |
| |
| PPP |
| --- |
| |
| The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to |
| 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 udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp |
| which can be made by:: |
| |
| mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0 |
| |
| as root. |
| |
| NFS-utils |
| --------- |
| |
| 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``. |
| |
| This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct |
| which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement |
| fail-over. Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from |
| getting lots of old entries that never get removed. |
| |
| 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/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 |
| ------ |
| |
| On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check |
| events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors |
| reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged. |
| |
| Kernel documentation |
| ******************** |
| |
| Sphinx |
| ------ |
| |
| Please see :ref:`sphinx_install` in :ref:`Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst <sphinxdoc>` |
| for details about Sphinx requirements. |
| |
| rustdoc |
| ------- |
| |
| ``rustdoc`` is used to generate the documentation for Rust code. Please see |
| Documentation/rust/general-information.rst for more information. |
| |
| Getting updated software |
| ======================== |
| |
| Kernel compilation |
| ****************** |
| |
| gcc |
| --- |
| |
| - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/> |
| |
| Clang/LLVM |
| ---------- |
| |
| - :ref:`Getting LLVM <getting_llvm>`. |
| |
| Rust |
| ---- |
| |
| - Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst. |
| |
| bindgen |
| ------- |
| |
| - Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst. |
| |
| Make |
| ---- |
| |
| - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/> |
| |
| Bash |
| ---- |
| |
| - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/> |
| |
| Binutils |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/> |
| |
| Flex |
| ---- |
| |
| - <https://github.com/westes/flex/releases> |
| |
| Bison |
| ----- |
| |
| - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/> |
| |
| OpenSSL |
| ------- |
| |
| - <https://www.openssl.org/> |
| |
| System utilities |
| **************** |
| |
| Util-linux |
| ---------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/> |
| |
| Kmod |
| ---- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/> |
| - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git> |
| |
| Ksymoops |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/> |
| |
| Mkinitrd |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main> |
| |
| E2fsprogs |
| --------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs/> |
| - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/> |
| |
| JFSutils |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://jfs.sourceforge.net/> |
| |
| Reiserfsprogs |
| ------------- |
| |
| - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jeffm/reiserfsprogs.git/> |
| |
| Xfsprogs |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfsprogs-dev.git> |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/xfs/xfsprogs/> |
| |
| Pcmciautils |
| ----------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/> |
| |
| Quota-tools |
| ----------- |
| |
| - <https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/> |
| |
| |
| Intel P6 microcode |
| ------------------ |
| |
| - <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/> |
| |
| udev |
| ---- |
| |
| - <https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html> |
| |
| FUSE |
| ---- |
| |
| - <https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse/releases> |
| |
| mcelog |
| ------ |
| |
| - <https://www.mcelog.org/> |
| |
| cpio |
| ---- |
| |
| - <https://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/> |
| |
| Networking |
| ********** |
| |
| PPP |
| --- |
| |
| - <https://download.samba.org/pub/ppp/> |
| - <https://git.ozlabs.org/?p=ppp.git> |
| - <https://github.com/paulusmack/ppp/> |
| |
| NFS-utils |
| --------- |
| |
| - <https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14> |
| - <https://nfs.sourceforge.net/> |
| |
| Iptables |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://netfilter.org/projects/iptables/index.html> |
| |
| Ip-route2 |
| --------- |
| |
| - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/> |
| |
| OProfile |
| -------- |
| |
| - <https://oprofile.sf.net/download/> |
| |
| Kernel documentation |
| ******************** |
| |
| Sphinx |
| ------ |
| |
| - <https://www.sphinx-doc.org/> |
