source: prologue/hostreqs.xml@ 70b0e4d

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<!DOCTYPE sect1 PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../general.ent">
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<sect1 id="pre-hostreqs">
  <?dbhtml filename="hostreqs.html"?>

  <title>Host System Requirements</title>

    <para>Your host system should have the following software with the minimum
    versions indicated. This should not be an issue for most modern Linux
    distributions. Also note that many distributions will place software headers
    into separate packages, often in the form of <quote>[package-name]-devel</quote>
    or <quote>[package-name]-dev</quote>. Be sure to install those as well, if
    your distribution provides them.</para>

  <itemizedlist>
    <listitem>
      <para>Bash-2.05a</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Binutils-2.12 (Versions greater than &binutils-version; not recommended.)</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Bzip2-1.0.2</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Coreutils-5.0 (or Sh-Utils-2.0, Textutils-2.0
      and Fileutils-4.1)</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Diffutils-2.8</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Findutils-4.1.20</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Gawk-3.0</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Gcc-2.95.3 (Versions greater than &gcc-version; not recommended.)</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Glibc-2.2.5 (Versions greater than &glibc-version; not recommended.)</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Grep-2.5</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Gzip-1.2.4</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Linux Kernel-2.6.2 (having been compiled with Gcc-3.0)</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Make-3.79.1</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Patch-2.5.4</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Sed-3.0.2</para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
      <para>Tar-1.14</para>
    </listitem>

  </itemizedlist>

  <para>There are two main reasons for the kernel version requirement. First,
  the Native POSIX Threading Library (NPTL) test suite will segfault if the
  host's kernel has not been compiled with GCC-3.0 or a later version. Second,
  the 2.6.2 or later version of the kernel is required for the use of Udev.
  Udev creates devices dynamically by reading from the <systemitem
  class="filesystem">sysfs</systemitem> file system. However, support for this
  filesystem has only recently been implemented in most of the kernel drivers.
  We must be sure that all critical system devices get created properly.</para>

  <para>In order to determine whether the host kernel meets the requirements
  outlined above, run the following command:</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>cat /proc/version</userinput></screen>

  <para>This will produce output similar to:</para>

<screen><computeroutput>Linux version 2.6.2 (user@host) (gcc version 3.4.0) #1
    Tue Apr 20 21:22:18 GMT 2004</computeroutput></screen>

  <para>If the results of the above command do not state that the host kernel
  is either 2.6.2 (or later), or that it was not compiled using a GCC-3.0 (or
  later) compiler, one will need to be installed. There are two methods you
  can take to solve this. First, see if your Linux vendor provides a 2.6.2 (or
  later) kernel package. If so, you may wish to install it. If your vendor
  doesn't offer a 2.6.2 (or later) kernel package, or you would prefer not to
  install it, then you can compile a 2.6 kernel yourself. Instructions for
  compiling the kernel and configuring the boot loader (assuming the host
  uses GRUB) are located in <xref linkend="chapter-bootable"/>.</para>

</sect1>