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 4.x 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, 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 | 4.9 | gcc –version |
Clang/LLVM (optional) | 10.0.1 | clang –version |
GNU make | 3.81 | make –version |
binutils | 2.23 | ld -v |
flex | 2.5.35 | flex –version |
bison | 2.0 | bison –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 |
oprofile | 0.9 | oprofiled –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[1] | 1.3 | sphinx-build –version |
-
[1] 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) 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 Building Linux with Clang/LLVM. -
Make
You will need GNU make 3.81 or later to build the kernel. -
Binutils
Binutils 2.23 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. -
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.
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 Sphinx Install in Introduction for details about Sphinx requirements.
Getting updated software
- Kernel compilation
gccTClang/LLVM
- Getting LLVM
- Make
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/ - 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
http://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
http://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
http://www.mcelog.org/ - Networking
- PPP
https://download.samba.org/pub/ppp/
https://git.ozlabs.org/?p=ppp.git
https://github.com/paulusmack/ppp/ - NFS-utils
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14 - Iptables
https://netfilter.org/projects/iptables/index.html - Ip-route2
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/ - OProfile
http://oprofile.sf.net/download/ - NFS-Utils
http://nfs.sourceforge.net/Kernel documentation
- Sphinx
https://www.sphinx-doc.org/