3 Minimal requirements to compile the Kernel
4 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
9 This document is designed to provide a list of the minimum levels of
10 software necessary to run the current kernel version.
12 This document is originally based on my "Changes" file for 2.0.x kernels
13 and therefore owes credit to the same people as that file (Jared Mauch,
14 Axel Boldt, Alessandro Sigala, and countless other users all over the
17 Current Minimal Requirements
18 ****************************
20 Upgrade to at **least** these software revisions before thinking you've
21 encountered a bug! If you're unsure what version you're currently
22 running, the suggested command should tell you.
24 Again, keep in mind that this list assumes you are already functionally
25 running a Linux kernel. Also, not all tools are necessary on all
26 systems; obviously, if you don't have any PC Card hardware, for example,
27 you probably needn't concern yourself with pcmciautils.
29 ====================== =============== ========================================
30 Program Minimal version Command to check the version
31 ====================== =============== ========================================
32 GNU C 5.1 gcc --version
33 Clang/LLVM (optional) 11.0.0 clang --version
34 Rust (optional) 1.62.0 rustc --version
35 bindgen (optional) 0.56.0 bindgen --version
36 GNU make 3.82 make --version
37 bash 4.2 bash --version
39 flex 2.5.35 flex --version
40 bison 2.0 bison --version
41 pahole 1.16 pahole --version
42 util-linux 2.10o fdformat --version
44 e2fsprogs 1.41.4 e2fsck -V
45 jfsutils 1.1.3 fsck.jfs -V
46 reiserfsprogs 3.6.3 reiserfsck -V
47 xfsprogs 2.6.0 xfs_db -V
48 squashfs-tools 4.0 mksquashfs -version
49 btrfs-progs 0.18 btrfsck
50 pcmciautils 004 pccardctl -V
51 quota-tools 3.09 quota -V
52 PPP 2.4.0 pppd --version
53 nfs-utils 1.0.5 showmount --version
54 procps 3.2.0 ps --version
55 udev 081 udevd --version
56 grub 0.93 grub --version || grub-install --version
57 mcelog 0.6 mcelog --version
58 iptables 1.4.2 iptables -V
59 openssl & libcrypto 1.0.0 openssl version
60 bc 1.06.95 bc --version
61 Sphinx\ [#f1]_ 1.7 sphinx-build --version
62 cpio any cpio --version
63 gtags (optional) 6.6.5 gtags --version
64 ====================== =============== ========================================
66 .. [#f1] Sphinx is needed only to build the Kernel documentation
74 The gcc version requirements may vary depending on the type of CPU in your
80 The latest formal release of clang and LLVM utils (according to
81 `releases.llvm.org <https://releases.llvm.org>`_) are supported for building
82 kernels. Older releases aren't guaranteed to work, and we may drop workarounds
83 from the kernel that were used to support older versions. Please see additional
84 docs on :ref:`Building Linux with Clang/LLVM <kbuild_llvm>`.
89 A particular version of the Rust toolchain is required. Newer versions may or
90 may not work because the kernel depends on some unstable Rust features, for
93 Each Rust toolchain comes with several "components", some of which are required
94 (like ``rustc``) and some that are optional. The ``rust-src`` component (which
95 is optional) needs to be installed to build the kernel. Other components are
96 useful for developing.
98 Please see Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst for instructions on how to
99 satisfy the build requirements of Rust support. In particular, the ``Makefile``
100 target ``rustavailable`` is useful to check why the Rust toolchain may not
106 ``bindgen`` is used to generate the Rust bindings to the C side of the kernel.
107 It depends on ``libclang``.
112 You will need GNU make 3.82 or later to build the kernel.
117 Some bash scripts are used for the kernel build.
118 Bash 4.2 or newer is needed.
123 Binutils 2.23 or newer is needed to build the kernel.
128 The build system, as of 4.18, requires pkg-config to check for installed
129 kconfig tools and to determine flags settings for use in
130 'make {g,x}config'. Previously pkg-config was being used but not
131 verified or documented.
136 Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates lexical analyzers
137 during build. This requires flex 2.5.35 or later.
143 Since Linux 4.16, the build system generates parsers
144 during build. This requires bison 2.0 or later.
149 Since Linux 5.2, if CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF is selected, the build system
150 generates BTF (BPF Type Format) from DWARF in vmlinux, a bit later from kernel
151 modules as well. This requires pahole v1.16 or later.
153 It is found in the 'dwarves' or 'pahole' distro packages or from
154 https://fedorapeople.org/~acme/dwarves/.
159 You will need perl 5 and the following modules: ``Getopt::Long``,
160 ``Getopt::Std``, ``File::Basename``, and ``File::Find`` to build the kernel.
165 You will need bc to build kernels 3.10 and higher
171 Module signing and external certificate handling use the OpenSSL program and
172 crypto library to do key creation and signature generation.
174 You will need openssl to build kernels 3.7 and higher if module signing is
175 enabled. You will also need openssl development packages to build kernels 4.3
178 gtags / GNU GLOBAL (optional)
179 -----------------------------
181 The kernel build requires GNU GLOBAL version 6.6.5 or later to generate
182 tag files through ``make gtags``. This is due to its use of the gtags
183 ``-C (--directory)`` flag.
188 Architectural changes
189 ---------------------
191 DevFS has been obsoleted in favour of udev
192 (https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/)
194 32-bit UID support is now in place. Have fun!
196 Linux documentation for functions is transitioning to inline
197 documentation via specially-formatted comments near their
198 definitions in the source. These comments can be combined with ReST
199 files the Documentation/ directory to make enriched documentation, which can
200 then be converted to PostScript, HTML, LaTex, ePUB and PDF files.
201 In order to convert from ReST format to a format of your choice, you'll need
207 New versions of util-linux provide ``fdisk`` support for larger disks,
208 support new options to mount, recognize more supported partition
209 types, have a fdformat which works with 2.4 kernels, and similar goodies.
210 You'll probably want to upgrade.
215 If the unthinkable happens and your kernel oopses, you may need the
216 ksymoops tool to decode it, but in most cases you don't.
217 It is generally preferred to build the kernel with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` so
218 that it produces readable dumps that can be used as-is (this also
219 produces better output than ksymoops). If for some reason your kernel
220 is not build with ``CONFIG_KALLSYMS`` and you have no way to rebuild and
221 reproduce the Oops with that option, then you can still decode that Oops
227 These changes to the ``/lib/modules`` file tree layout also require that
228 mkinitrd be upgraded.
233 The latest version of ``e2fsprogs`` fixes several bugs in fsck and
234 debugfs. Obviously, it's a good idea to upgrade.
239 The ``jfsutils`` package contains the utilities for the file system.
240 The following utilities are available:
242 - ``fsck.jfs`` - initiate replay of the transaction log, and check
243 and repair a JFS formatted partition.
245 - ``mkfs.jfs`` - create a JFS formatted partition.
247 - other file system utilities are also available in this package.
252 The reiserfsprogs package should be used for reiserfs-3.6.x
253 (Linux kernels 2.4.x). It is a combined package and contains working
254 versions of ``mkreiserfs``, ``resize_reiserfs``, ``debugreiserfs`` and
255 ``reiserfsck``. These utils work on both i386 and alpha platforms.
260 The latest version of ``xfsprogs`` contains ``mkfs.xfs``, ``xfs_db``, and the
261 ``xfs_repair`` utilities, among others, for the XFS filesystem. It is
262 architecture independent and any version from 2.0.0 onward should
263 work correctly with this version of the XFS kernel code (2.6.0 or
264 later is recommended, due to some significant improvements).
269 PCMCIAutils replaces ``pcmcia-cs``. It properly sets up
270 PCMCIA sockets at system startup and loads the appropriate modules
271 for 16-bit PCMCIA devices if the kernel is modularized and the hotplug
277 Support for 32 bit uid's and gid's is required if you want to use
278 the newer version 2 quota format. Quota-tools version 3.07 and
279 newer has this support. Use the recommended version or newer
280 from the table above.
285 A driver has been added to allow updating of Intel IA32 microcode,
286 accessible as a normal (misc) character device. If you are not using
287 udev you may need to::
290 mknod /dev/cpu/microcode c 10 184
291 chmod 0644 /dev/cpu/microcode
293 as root before you can use this. You'll probably also want to
294 get the user-space microcode_ctl utility to use with this.
299 ``udev`` is a userspace application for populating ``/dev`` dynamically with
300 only entries for devices actually present. ``udev`` replaces the basic
301 functionality of devfs, while allowing persistent device naming for
307 Needs libfuse 2.4.0 or later. Absolute minimum is 2.3.0 but mount
308 options ``direct_io`` and ``kernel_cache`` won't work.
316 If you have advanced network configuration needs, you should probably
317 consider using the network tools from ip-route2.
321 The packet filtering and NAT code uses the same tools like the previous 2.4.x
322 kernel series (iptables). It still includes backwards-compatibility modules
323 for 2.2.x-style ipchains and 2.0.x-style ipfwadm.
328 The PPP driver has been restructured to support multilink and to
329 enable it to operate over diverse media layers. If you use PPP,
330 upgrade pppd to at least 2.4.0.
332 If you are not using udev, you must have the device file /dev/ppp
333 which can be made by::
335 mknod /dev/ppp c 108 0
342 In ancient (2.4 and earlier) kernels, the nfs server needed to know
343 about any client that expected to be able to access files via NFS. This
344 information would be given to the kernel by ``mountd`` when the client
345 mounted the filesystem, or by ``exportfs`` at system startup. exportfs
346 would take information about active clients from ``/var/lib/nfs/rmtab``.
348 This approach is quite fragile as it depends on rmtab being correct
349 which is not always easy, particularly when trying to implement
350 fail-over. Even when the system is working well, ``rmtab`` suffers from
351 getting lots of old entries that never get removed.
353 With modern kernels we have the option of having the kernel tell mountd
354 when it gets a request from an unknown host, and mountd can give
355 appropriate export information to the kernel. This removes the
356 dependency on ``rmtab`` and means that the kernel only needs to know about
357 currently active clients.
359 To enable this new functionality, you need to::
361 mount -t nfsd nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd
363 before running exportfs or mountd. It is recommended that all NFS
364 services be protected from the internet-at-large by a firewall where
370 On x86 kernels the mcelog utility is needed to process and log machine check
371 events when ``CONFIG_X86_MCE`` is enabled. Machine check events are errors
372 reported by the CPU. Processing them is strongly encouraged.
380 Please see :ref:`sphinx_install` in :ref:`Documentation/doc-guide/sphinx.rst <sphinxdoc>`
381 for details about Sphinx requirements.
386 ``rustdoc`` is used to generate the documentation for Rust code. Please see
387 Documentation/rust/general-information.rst for more information.
389 Getting updated software
390 ========================
398 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/>
403 - :ref:`Getting LLVM <getting_llvm>`.
408 - Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst.
413 - Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst.
418 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/make/>
423 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bash/>
428 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/>
433 - <https://github.com/westes/flex/releases>
438 - <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/bison/>
443 - <https://www.openssl.org/>
451 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>
456 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/kmod/>
457 - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/kernel/kmod/kmod.git>
462 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/v2.4/>
467 - <https://code.launchpad.net/initrd-tools/main>
472 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs/>
473 - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/ext2/e2fsprogs.git/>
478 - <http://jfs.sourceforge.net/>
483 - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/jeffm/reiserfsprogs.git/>
488 - <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfsprogs-dev.git>
489 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/fs/xfs/xfsprogs/>
494 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia/>
499 - <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota/>
505 - <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/>
510 - <https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/udev.html>
515 - <https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse/releases>
520 - <http://www.mcelog.org/>
525 - <https://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/>
533 - <https://download.samba.org/pub/ppp/>
534 - <https://git.ozlabs.org/?p=ppp.git>
535 - <https://github.com/paulusmack/ppp/>
540 - <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14>
545 - <https://netfilter.org/projects/iptables/index.html>
550 - <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/net/iproute2/>
555 - <http://oprofile.sf.net/download/>
560 - <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/>
568 - <https://www.sphinx-doc.org/>