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-
- Linux kernel release 1.0
-
- These are the release notes for linux version 1.0. Read them carefully,
- as they tell you what this is all about, explain how to install the
- kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong.
-
- WHAT IS LINUX?
-
- Linux is a Unix clone for 386/486-based PCs written from scratch by
- Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers
- across the Net. It aims towards POSIX 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 is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
- accompanying COPYING file for more details.
-
- INSTALLING the kernel:
-
- - If you install the full sources, do a
-
- cd /usr/src
- tar xvf linux-1.0.tar
-
- to get it all put in place.
-
- - if you install by patching, you need a *clean* 0.99.15 source tree,
- which presumably exists in /usr/src/linux. If so, to get the kernel
- patched, just do a
-
- cd /usr/src
- patch -p0 < linux-1.0.patch
-
- and you should be ok. You may want to remove the backup files (xxx~
- or xxx.orig), and make sure that there are no failed patches (xxx# or
- xxx.rej).
-
- - make sure your /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm directories
- are just symlinks to the kernel sources:
-
- cd /usr/include
- rm -rf linux
- rm -rf asm
- ln -s /usr/src/linux/include/linux .
- ln -s /usr/src/linux/include/asm .
-
- - make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:
-
- cd /usr/src/linux
- make mrproper
-
- You should now have the sources correctly installed.
-
- CONFIGURING the kernel:
-
- - do a "make config" to configure the basic kernel. "make config"
- needs bash to work: it will search for bash in $BASH, /bin/bash and
- /bin/sh (in that order), so hopefully one of those is correct.
-
- NOTES on "make config":
- - having unnecessary drivers will make the kernel bigger, and can
- under some circumstances lead to problems: probing for a
- nonexistent controller card may confuse your other controllers
- - compiling the kernel with "-m486" for a number of 486-specific
- will result in a kernel that still works on a 386: it may be
- slightly larger and possibly slower by an insignificant amount,
- but it should not hurt performance.
- - A kernel with math-emulation compiled in will still use the
- coprocessor if one is present: the math emulation will just
- never get used in that case. The kernel will be slighly larger,
- but will work on different machines regardless of whether they
- have a math coprocessor or not.
- - the "kernel hacking" configuration details usually result in a
- bigger or slower kernel (or both), and can even make the kernel
- less stable by configuring some routines to actively try to
- break bad code to find kernel problems (kmalloc()). Thus you
- should probably answer 'n' to the questions for a "production"
- kernel.
-
- - edit drivers/net/CONFIG to configure the networking parts of the
- kernel. The comments should hopefully clarify it all.
-
- - Check the top Makefile for further site-dependent configuration
- (default SVGA mode etc).
-
- - Finally, do a "make dep" to set up all the dependencies correctly.
-
- COMPILING the kernel:
-
- - make sure you have gcc-2.4.5 or newer available. It seems older gcc
- versions can have problems compiling newer versions of linux. If you
- upgrade your compiler, remember to get the new binutils package too
- (for as/ld/nm and company)
-
- - do a "make zImage" to create a compressed kernel image. If you want
- to make a bootdisk (without root filesystem or lilo), insert a floppy
- in your A: drive, and do a "make zdisk". It is also possible to do
- "make zlilo" if you have lilo installed to suit the kernel makefiles,
- but you may want to check your particular lilo setup first.
-
- - keep a backup kernel handy in case something goes wrong.
-
- - In order to boot your new kernel, you'll need to copy the kernel
- image (found in /usr/src/linux/zImage after compilation) to the place
- where your regular bootable kernel is found.
-
- For some, this is on a floppy disk, in which case you can "cp
- /usr/src/linux/zImage /dev/fd0" to make a bootable floppy.
-
- If you boot Linux from the hard drive, chances are you use LILO which
- uses the kernel image as specified in the file /etc/lilo/config. The
- kernel image file is usually /vmlinuz, or /zImage, or /etc/zImage.
- To use the new kernel, copy the new image over the old one (save a
- backup of the original!). Then, you MUST RERUN LILO to update the
- loading map!! If you don't, you won't be able to boot the new kernel
- image.
-
- Reinstalling LILO is usually a matter of running /etc/lilo/install.
- You may wish to edit /etc/lilo/config to specify an entry for your
- old kernel image (say, /vmlinux.old) in case the new one does not
- work. See the LILO docs for more information.
-
- After reinstalling LILO, you should be all set. Shutdown the system,
- reboot, and enjoy!
-
- If you ever need to change the default root device, video mode,
- ramdisk size, etc. in the kernel image, use the 'rdev' program (or
- alternatively the LILO boot options when appropriate). No need to
- recompile the kernel to change these parameters.
-
- - reboot with the new kernel and enjoy.
-
- IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG:
-
- - if you have problems that seem to be due to kernel bugs, please mail
- them to me (Linus.Torvalds@Helsinki.FI), and possibly to any other
- relevant mailing-list or to the newsgroup. The mailing-lists are
- useful especially for SCSI and NETworking problems, as I can't test
- either of those personally anyway.
-
- - In all bug-reports, *please* tell what kernel you are talking about,
- how to duplicate the problem, and what your setup is (use your common
- sense). If the problem is new, tell me so, and if the problem is
- old, please try to tell me when you first noticed it.
-
- - if the bug results in a message like
-
- unable to handle kernel paging request at address C0000010
- Oops: 0002
- EIP: 0010:xxxxxxxx
- eax: xxxxxxxx ebx: xxxxxxxx ecx: xxxxxxxx edx: xxxxxxxx
- esi: xxxxxxxx edi: xxxxxxxx ebp: xxxxxxxx
- ds: xxxx es: xxxx fs: xxxx gs: xxxx
- Pid: xx, process nr: xx
- xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
-
- or similar kernel debugging information on your screen or in your
- system log, please duplicate it *exactly*. The dump may look
- incomprehensible to you, but it does contain information that may
- help debugging the problem. The text above the dump is also
- important: it tells something about why the kernel dumped code (in
- the above example it's due to a bad kernel pointer)
-
- - in debugging dumps like the above, it helps enourmously if you can
- look up what the EIP value means. The hex value as such doesn't help
- me or anybody else very much: it will depend on your particular
- kernel setup. What you should do is take the hex value from the EIP
- line (ignore the "0010:"), and look it up in the kernel namelist to
- see which kernel function contains the offending address.
-
- To find out the kernel function name, you'll need to find the system
- binary associated with the kernel that exhibited the symptom. In the
- case of compressed kernels, this will be 'linux/tools/zSystem', while
- uncompressed kernels use the file 'tools/system'. To extract the
- namelist and match it against the EIP from the kernel crash, do:
-
- nm tools/zSystem | sort | less
-
- This will give you a list of kernel addresses sorted in ascending
- order, from which it is simple to find the function that contains the
- offending address. Note that the address given by the kernel
- debugging messages will not necessarily match exactly with the
- function addresses (in fact, that is very unlikely), so you can't
- just 'grep' the list: the list will, however, give you the starting
- point of each kernel function, so by looking for the function that
- has a starting address lower than the one you are searching for but
- is followed by a function with a higher address you will find the one
- you want. In fact, it may be a good idea to include a bit of
- "context" in your problem report, giving a few lines around the
- interesting one.
-
- 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.
-
-