- Linux kernel release 2.6.xx
+ Linux kernel release 2.6.xx <http://kernel.org/>
These are the release notes for Linux version 2.6. Read them carefully,
as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
WHAT IS LINUX?
- Linux is a Unix clone written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with
- assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net.
- It aims towards POSIX compliance.
+ Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by
+ Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across
+ the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.
- It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged
- Unix, including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries,
- demand loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory
- management and TCP/IP networking.
+ It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix,
+ including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand
+ loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management,
+ and multistack networking including IPv4 and IPv6.
It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
accompanying COPYING file for more details.
ON WHAT HARDWARE DOES IT RUN?
- Linux was first developed for 386/486-based PCs. These days it also
- runs on ARMs, DEC Alphas, SUN Sparcs, M68000 machines (like Atari and
- Amiga), MIPS and PowerPC, and others.
+ Although originally developed first for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher),
+ today Linux also runs on (at least) the Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and
+ UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, Cell,
+ IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64, AXIS CRIS,
+ Cris, Xtensa, AVR32 and Renesas M32R architectures.
+
+ Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures
+ as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the
+ GNU C compiler (gcc) (part of The GNU Compiler Collection, GCC). Linux has
+ also been ported to a number of architectures without a PMMU, although
+ functionality is then obviously somewhat limited.
+ Linux has also been ported to itself. You can now run the kernel as a
+ userspace application - this is called UserMode Linux (UML).
DOCUMENTATION:
whatever the kernel-du-jour happens to be.
- You can also upgrade between 2.6.xx releases by patching. Patches are
- distributed in the traditional gzip and the new bzip2 format. To
+ distributed in the traditional gzip and the newer bzip2 format. To
install by patching, get all the newer patch files, enter the
top level directory of the kernel source (linux-2.6.xx) and execute:
version 2.6.12.2 and want to jump to 2.6.12.3, you must first
reverse the 2.6.12.2 patch (that is, patch -R) _before_ applying
the 2.6.12.3 patch.
+ You can read more on this in Documentation/applying-patches.txt
- Make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:
only ask you for the answers to new questions.
- Alternate configuration commands are:
+ "make config" Plain text interface.
"make menuconfig" Text based color menus, radiolists & dialogs.
"make xconfig" X windows (Qt) based configuration tool.
"make gconfig" X windows (Gtk) based configuration tool.
"make oldconfig" Default all questions based on the contents of
- your existing ./.config file.
+ your existing ./.config file and asking about
+ new config symbols.
"make silentoldconfig"
Like above, but avoids cluttering the screen
with questions already answered.
+ "make defconfig" Create a ./.config file by using the default
+ symbol values from arch/$ARCH/defconfig.
+ "make allyesconfig"
+ Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
+ values to 'y' as much as possible.
+ "make allmodconfig"
+ Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
+ values to 'm' as much as possible.
+ "make allnoconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
+ values to 'n' as much as possible.
+ "make randconfig" Create a ./.config file by setting symbol
+ values to random values.
+
+ The allyesconfig/allmodconfig/allnoconfig/randconfig variants can
+ also use the environment variable KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG to specify a
+ filename that contains config options that the user requires to be
+ set to a specific value. If KCONFIG_ALLCONFIG=filename is not used,
+ "make *config" checks for a file named "all{yes/mod/no/random}.config"
+ for symbol values that are to be forced. If this file is not found,
+ it checks for a file named "all.config" to contain forced values.
NOTES on "make config":
- having unnecessary drivers will make the kernel bigger, and can
COMPILING the kernel:
- - Make sure you have gcc 2.95.3 available.
- gcc 2.91.66 (egcs-1.1.2), and gcc 2.7.2.3 are known to miscompile
- some parts of the kernel, and are *no longer supported*.
- Also remember to upgrade your binutils package (for as/ld/nm and company)
- if necessary. For more information, refer to Documentation/Changes.
+ - Make sure you have at least gcc 3.2 available.
+ For more information, refer to Documentation/Changes.
Please note that you can still run a.out user programs with this kernel.
- If you compiled the kernel with CONFIG_KALLSYMS you can send the dump
as is, otherwise you will have to use the "ksymoops" program to make
- sense of the dump. This utility can be downloaded from
- ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops.
+ sense of the dump (but compiling with CONFIG_KALLSYMS is usually preferred).
+ This utility can be downloaded from
+ ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/ksymoops/ .
Alternately you can do the dump lookup by hand:
- In debugging dumps like the above, it helps enormously if you can
If you for some reason cannot do the above (you have a pre-compiled
kernel image or similar), telling me as much about your setup as
- possible will help.
+ possible will help. Please read the REPORTING-BUGS document for details.
- Alternately, you can use gdb on a running kernel. (read-only; i.e. you
cannot change values or set break points.) To do this, first compile the
projects / linux.git / blobdiff