source: prologue/hostreqs.xml@ fd8b059

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!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">
  %general-entities;
]>

<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>&lt;package-name&gt;-devel</quote> or
    <quote>&lt;package-name&gt;-dev</quote>. Be sure to install those if
    your distribution provides them. For each package a command has been
    added to help you to determine what version is installed on your
    host.</para>

  <itemizedlist spacing="compact">

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Bash-2.05a</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>bash --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Binutils-2.12</emphasis> (Versions
      greater than &binutils-version; are not recommended as they have
      not been tested)</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>ld --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Bzip2-1.0.2</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>bzip2 --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Coreutils-5.0</emphasis> (or Sh-Utils-2.0,
      Textutils-2.0, and Fileutils-4.1)</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>chonw --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Diffutils-2.8</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>diff --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Findutils-4.1.20</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>find --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Gawk-3.0</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>gawk --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Gcc-2.95.3</emphasis> (Versions
      greater than &gcc-version; are not recommended as they have not
      been tested)</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>gcc --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Glibc-2.2.5</emphasis> (Versions
      greater than &glibc-version; are not recommended as they have
      not been tested)</para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>/lib/libc.so.6</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Grep-2.5</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>grep --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Gzip-1.2.4</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>gzip --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Linux Kernel-2.6.x</emphasis>
      (having been compiled with Gcc-3.0)</para>

      <para>The reason for the kernel version requirement is that thread-local
      storage support in Binutils will not be built and the Native POSIX
      Threading Library (NPTL) test suite will segfault if the host's kernel
      isn't at least a 2.6.x version compiled with a 3.0 or later release of
      GCC.</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.x, or that it was not compiled using a GCC-3.0
      (or later) compiler, you will have to replace the kernel with one
      adhering to the specifications. There are two methods you can take
      to solve this. First, see if your Linux vendor provides a 2.6 kernel
      package. If so, you may wish to install it. If your vendor doesn't
      offer a 2.6 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>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Make-3.79.1</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>make --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Patch-2.5.4</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>patch --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Sed-3.0.2</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>sed --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
      <para><emphasis role="strong">Tar-1.14</emphasis></para>

<screen role="nodump"><userinput>tar --version</userinput></screen>
    </listitem>

  </itemizedlist>

</sect1>