This chapter describes the programs you need to configure a kernel, build it, and successfully boot it. It's a smart idea to consult the file Documentation/Changes to verify the specific version number you should have of each tool described in this chapter. This chapter was based on the 2.6.18 kernel, and describes the versions of tools building the kerneltools that work with that kernel. If you are using a different kernel, please verify that you have the required versions as specified in this file, or things might not work properly and it can be very hard to determine what went wrong. toolsbuilding the kernel gcc compiler compiler (gcc) C compiler, gcc Most Linux distributions offer an installation option to install a range of kernel hacking packages. If your distribution offers this option, it is easiest to install this instead of trying to track down all of the individual programs that are needed for this task. Only three packages that are needed in order to successfully build a kernel: a compiler, building the kerneltoolscompiler a linker, and a make utility. This section describes the contents of each package. The Linux kernel is written in the C programming language, with a small amount of assembly language in some places. To build the kernel, the gcc C compiler must be used. Most Linux distributions have a package entitiled gcc that should be installed. If you wish to download the compiler and build it yourself, you can find it at http://gcc.gnu.org. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 3.2 version of gcc is the oldest that can properly build a working kernel. Be warned that getting the most recent gcc version is not always a good idea. Some of the newest gcc releases don't build the kernel properly, so unless you wish to help debug compiler bugs, it is not recommended that you try them out. To determine which version of gcc you have on your system, run the following command: $ gcc --version using the kernel, tools for toolsto use the kernel make utility linking source files (binutils) building the kerneltoolslinker The C compiler, gcc, does not do all of the compiling on its own. It needs an additional set of tools known as binutils binutils to do the linking and assembling of source files. The binutils package also contains useful utilities that can manipulate object files in lots of useful ways, such as to view the contents of a library. binutils can usually be found in a distribution package called (not surprisingly) binutils. If you wish to download and install the package yourself, you can find it at http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 2.12 release of binutils is the oldest that can successfully link the kernel. To determine which version of binutils you have on your system, run the following command: $ ld -v building the kerneltoolsmake make is a tool that walks the kernel source tree to determine which files need to be compiled, and then calls the compiler and other build tools to do the work in building the kernel. The kernel requires the GNU version of make, which can usually be found in a package called make for your distribution. If you wish to download and install make youself, you can find it at http://www.gnu.org/software/make. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 3.79.1 release of make is the oldest that can properly build the kernel. It is recommended that you install the latest stable version of make, because newer versions are known to work faster at processing the build files. To determine which version of make you have on your system, run the following command: $ make --version While the version of the kernel that is running does not usually affect any user application, there are a small number of program for which the kernel version is important. This section describes a number of tools that are probably already installed on your Linux system. If you upgrade your kernel to a version different from the one that came with your distribution, some of these packages may also need to be upgraded in order for the system to work properly. toolsto use the kernelutil-linux The util-linux package is a collection of small utilities that do a wide range of different tasks. Most of these utilities handle the mounting and creation of disk partitions and manipulation of the hardware clock in the system. If you wish to download and install the util-linux package yourself, you can find it at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 2.10 release of util-linux is the oldest that works properly. It is recommended that you install the latest version of this package, because new version support new features added to the kernel. Bind mounts are one example of an option in newer kernels, and a newer version of util-linux is needed in order to have them work properly. To determine which version of the util-linux package you have on your system, run the following command: $ fdformat --version toolsto use the kernelmodule-init-tools util-linux package module-init-tools package The module-init-tools package is needed if you wish to use Linux kernel modules. A kernel module is a loadable chunk of code that can be added to or removed from the kernel while the kernel is running. It is useful to compile device drivers as modules and then load only the ones that correspond to the hardware present in the system. All Linux distributions use modules in order to load only the needed drivers and options for the system based on the hardware present, instead of being forced to build all possible drivers and options in the kernel in one large chunk. Modules save memory by loading just the code that is needed to control the machine properly. The kernel module loading process underwent a radical change in the 2.6 kernel release. The linker for the module (the code that resolves all symbols and figures out how to put the pieces together in memory) is now built into the kernel, which makes the userspace tools quite small. Older distributions have a package called modutils that does not work properly with the 2.6 kernel. The module-init-tools package is what you need to get the 2.6 kernel to work properly with modules. If you wish to download and install the module-init-tools package yourself, you can find it at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 0.9.10 release of module-init-tools is the oldest version that works properly. It is recommended that the latest version of this package be installed, as new features added to the kernel can be used by newer versions of this package. Blacklisting modules to prevent them from being automatically loaded by the udev package is one such option that is present in newer versions of module-init-tools, but not older ones. To determine which version of the module-init-tools package you have on your system, run the following command: $ depmod -V A wide range of tools specific to particular filesystems are necessary to create, format, configure, and fix disk partitions. The util-linux package has a few of these utilities, but some of the more popular filesystems have separate packages that contain the necessary programs. using the kernel, tools forfilesystem-specific toolsto use the kernelfilesystem-specific reiserfsprogs package jfsutils pacakge JFS filesystem (IBM) IBM JFS filesystem filesystemsspecific tools for using the kernel ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems e2fsprogs package The ext3 and experimental ext4 filesystems are upgrades of ext2 and can be managed with the same tools; any recent version of an ext2-based tool can work with the other two filesystems as well. To work with any of these filesystems, you must have the e2fsprogs package. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 1.29 release of e2fsprogs is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. It is highly recommended that you use the newest version in order to take advantage of newer features in the ext3 and ext4 filesystems. To determine which version of e2fsprogs you have on your system, run the following command: $ tune2fs To use the JFS filesystem from IBM, you must have the jfsutils pacakge. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://jfs.sourceforge.net. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 1.1.3 release of jfsutils is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. To determine which version of jfsutils you have on your system, run the following command: $ fsck.jfs -V To use the ReiserFS filesystem, ReiserFS filesystem you must have the reiserfsprogs package. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://www.namesys.com/download.html. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 3.6.3 release of reiserfsprogs is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. To determine which version of reiserfsprogs you have on your system, run the following command: $ reiserfsck -V To use the XFS filesystem XFS filesystem from SGI, you must have the xfsprogs package. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 2.6.0 release of xfsprogs is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. To determine which version of xfsprogs you have on your system, run the following command: $ xfs_db -V xfsprogs package using the kernel, tools forclosely tied to kernel version toolsto use the kernelclosely tied to kernel version SGI, XFS filesystem quota-tools package nfs-utils package To use the quota functionality of the kernel, you must have the quota-tools package.Some distributions, notably Debian, call this package quota instead of quota-tools. This package includes programs that let you set quotas on users, provide statistics on the amount of quota being used by different users, and issue warnings when people get too close to using up their available filesystem quota. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxquota. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 3.09 release of quota-tools is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. To determine which version of quota-tools you have on your system, run the following command: $ quota -V To use the NFS filesystem NFS filesystem properly, you must have the nfs-utils package.Some distributions, notably Debian, call this package nfs-common instead of nfs-utils. This package includes programs that let you mount NFS partitions as a client, and run an NFS server. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://nfs.sf.net. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 1.0.5 release of nfs-utils is the oldest that works properly with the kernel To determine which version of nfs-utils you have on your system, run the following command: $ showmount --version There are a few other important programs that are closely tied to the kernel version. These programs are not usually required in order for the kernel to work properly, but they enable access to different types of hardware and functions. udev is a program that enables Linux to provide a persistent device-naming system in the /dev directory. It also provides a dynamic /dev, much like the one provided by the older (and now removed) devfs filesystem. Almost all Linux distributions use udev to manage the /dev directory, so it is required in order to properly boot the machine. Unfortunately, udev relies on the structure of /sys, which has been known to change from time to time with kernel releases. Some of these changes in the past have been known to break udev, so that your machine will not boot properly. If you have the latest version of udev recommended for your kernel and have problems with it working properly, please contact the udev developers on the mailing list available at linux-hotplug-devel@lists.sourceforge.net. It is highly recommended that you use the version of udev that comes with your Linux distribution, as it is tied into the distribution specific boot process very tightly. But if you wish to upgrade udev on your own, you can find it at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 081 release of udev is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. It is recommended that you use the latest version of udev, because it will work better with newer kernels, due to changes in how udev and the kernel communicate. To determine which version of udev you have on your system, run the following command: $ udevinfo -V udev program top tool ps tool procps package processes running on the system, tools for PCMCIA devicestools for using with Linux device naming system in the /dev directory /dev directory, device naming system (udev) The package procps includes the commonly used tools ps and top, as well as many other handy tools for managing and monitoring processes running on the system. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at http://procps.sourceforge.net. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 3.2.0 release of procps is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. To determine which version of procps you have on your system, run the following command: $ ps --version In order to properly use PCMCIA devices with Linux, a userspace helper program must be used to set up the devices. For older kernel versions, this program was called pcmcia-cs, but that has been replaced with a much simpler system called pcmciautils. pcmciautils If you wish to use PCMCIA devices, you must have this package installed for them to work properly. If you wish to download and install this package yourself, you can find it at ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/pcmcia. As of the 2.6.18 kernel release, the 004 release of pcmciautils is the oldest that works properly with the kernel. But the latest version is recommended in order to take advantage of newer features in the PCMCIA subsystem, such as automatic driver loading when new devices are found. To determine which version of pcmciautils you have on your system, run the following command: $ pccardctl -V