
	Linux kernel release 0.99 patchlevel 14

These are the release notes for linux version 0.99.14.  Read them
carefully, as they tell you what's new, explain how to install the
kernel, and what to do if something goes wrong. 

INSTALLING the kernel:

 - if you install by patching, you need a *clean* 0.99.13 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-0.99.patch14

   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 you install the full sources, do a

		cd /usr/src
		tar xvf linux-0.99.14.tar

   to get it all put in place.

 - 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":
	- 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 with g++.  It seems
   older gcc versions can have problems compiling linux 0.99.10 and
   newer versions.  If you upgrade, 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. 

 - 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. 

