Linux-2.6.12-rc2v2.6.12-rc2

Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.

Let it rip!

1 files changed, 305 insertions, 0 deletions

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+        Linux kernel release 2.6.xx
+
+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
+kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong. 
+
+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. 
+
+  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. 
+
+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.
+
+DOCUMENTATION:
+
+ - There is a lot of documentation available both in electronic form on
+   the Internet and in books, both Linux-specific and pertaining to
+   general UNIX questions.  I'd recommend looking into the documentation
+   subdirectories on any Linux FTP site for the LDP (Linux Documentation
+   Project) books.  This README is not meant to be documentation on the
+   system: there are much better sources available.
+
+ - There are various README files in the Documentation/ subdirectory:
+   these typically contain kernel-specific installation notes for some 
+   drivers for example. See Documentation/00-INDEX for a list of what
+   is contained in each file.  Please read the Changes file, as it
+   contains information about the problems, which may result by upgrading
+   your kernel.
+
+ - The Documentation/DocBook/ subdirectory contains several guides for
+   kernel developers and users.  These guides can be rendered in a
+   number of formats:  PostScript (.ps), PDF, and HTML, among others.
+   After installation, "make psdocs", "make pdfdocs", or "make htmldocs"
+   will render the documentation in the requested format.
+
+INSTALLING the kernel:
+
+ - If you install the full sources, put the kernel tarball in a
+   directory where you have permissions (eg. your home directory) and
+   unpack it:
+
+                gzip -cd linux-2.6.XX.tar.gz | tar xvf -
+
+   Replace "XX" with the version number of the latest kernel.
+
+   Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! This area has a (usually
+   incomplete) set of kernel headers that are used by the library header
+   files.  They should match the library, and not get messed up by
+   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
+   install by patching, get all the newer patch files, enter the
+   top level directory of the kernel source (linux-2.6.xx) and execute:
+
+                gzip -cd ../patch-2.6.xx.gz | patch -p1
+
+   or
+                bzip2 -dc ../patch-2.6.xx.bz2 | patch -p1
+
+   (repeat xx for all versions bigger than the version of your current
+   source tree, _in_order_) 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). If there are, either you or me has
+   made a mistake.
+
+   Alternatively, the script patch-kernel can be used to automate this
+   process.  It determines the current kernel version and applies any
+   patches found.
+
+                linux/scripts/patch-kernel linux
+
+   The first argument in the command above is the location of the
+   kernel source.  Patches are applied from the current directory, but
+   an alternative directory can be specified as the second argument.
+
+ - Make sure you have no stale .o files and dependencies lying around:
+
+                cd linux
+                make mrproper
+
+   You should now have the sources correctly installed.
+
+SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
+
+   Compiling and running the 2.6.xx kernels requires up-to-date
+   versions of various software packages.  Consult
+   Documentation/Changes for the minimum version numbers required
+   and how to get updates for these packages.  Beware that using
+   excessively old versions of these packages can cause indirect
+   errors that are very difficult to track down, so don't assume that
+   you can just update packages when obvious problems arise during
+   build or operation.
+
+BUILD directory for the kernel:
+
+   When compiling the kernel all output files will per default be
+   stored together with the kernel source code.
+   Using the option "make O=output/dir" allow you to specify an alternate
+   place for the output files (including .config).
+   Example:
+     kernel source code:        /usr/src/linux-2.6.N
+     build directory:           /home/name/build/kernel
+
+   To configure and build the kernel use:
+   cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.N
+   make O=/home/name/build/kernel menuconfig
+   make O=/home/name/build/kernel
+   sudo make O=/home/name/build/kernel modules_install install
+
+   Please note: If the 'O=output/dir' option is used then it must be
+   used for all invocations of make.
+
+CONFIGURING the kernel:
+
+   Do not skip this step even if you are only upgrading one minor
+   version.  New configuration options are added in each release, and
+   odd problems will turn up if the configuration files are not set up
+   as expected.  If you want to carry your existing configuration to a
+   new version with minimal work, use "make oldconfig", which will
+   only ask you for the answers to new questions.
+
+ - Alternate configuration commands are:
+        "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.
+   
+        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 "Processor type" set higher than 386
+          will result in a kernel that does NOT work on a 386.  The
+          kernel will detect this on bootup, and give up.
+        - 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 slightly 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
+          "development", "experimental", or "debugging" features.
+
+ - Check the top Makefile for further site-dependent configuration
+   (default SVGA mode etc). 
+
+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.
+
+   Please note that you can still run a.out user programs with this kernel.
+
+ - Do a "make" to create a compressed kernel image. It is also
+   possible to do "make install" if you have lilo installed to suit the
+   kernel makefiles, but you may want to check your particular lilo setup first.
+
+   To do the actual install you have to be root, but none of the normal
+   build should require that. Don't take the name of root in vain.
+
+ - If you configured any of the parts of the kernel as `modules', you
+   will also have to do "make modules_install".
+
+ - Keep a backup kernel handy in case something goes wrong.  This is 
+   especially true for the development releases, since each new release
+   contains new code which has not been debugged.  Make sure you keep a
+   backup of the modules corresponding to that kernel, as well.  If you
+   are installing a new kernel with the same version number as your
+   working kernel, make a backup of your modules directory before you
+   do a "make modules_install".
+
+ - In order to boot your new kernel, you'll need to copy the kernel
+   image (e.g. .../linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage after compilation)
+   to the place where your regular bootable kernel is found. 
+
+ - Booting a kernel directly from a floppy without the assistance of a
+   bootloader such as LILO, is no longer supported.
+
+   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.conf.  The
+   kernel image file is usually /vmlinuz, /boot/vmlinuz, /bzImage or
+   /boot/bzImage.  To use the new kernel, save a copy of the old image
+   and copy the new image over the old one.  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 /sbin/lilo. 
+   You may wish to edit /etc/lilo.conf 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 check
+   the file MAINTAINERS to see if there is a particular person associated
+   with the part of the kernel that you are having trouble with. If there
+   isn't anyone listed there, then the second best thing is to mail
+   them to me (torvalds@osdl.org), and possibly to any other relevant
+   mailing-list or to the newsgroup.
+
+ - 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). More information
+   on making sense of the dump is in Documentation/oops-tracing.txt
+
+ - 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.
+   Alternately you can do the dump lookup by hand:
+
+ - In debugging dumps like the above, it helps enormously 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.  This is
+   the file 'linux/vmlinux'.  To extract the namelist and match it against
+   the EIP from the kernel crash, do:
+
+                nm vmlinux | 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. 
+
+ - 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
+   kernel with -g; edit arch/i386/Makefile appropriately, then do a "make
+   clean". You'll also need to enable CONFIG_PROC_FS (via "make config").
+
+   After you've rebooted with the new kernel, do "gdb vmlinux /proc/kcore".
+   You can now use all the usual gdb commands. The command to look up the
+   point where your system crashed is "l *0xXXXXXXXX". (Replace the XXXes
+   with the EIP value.)
+
+   gdb'ing a non-running kernel currently fails because gdb (wrongly)
+   disregards the starting offset for which the kernel is compiled.
+