[dpdk-users] DPDK Linux kernel version requirement

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2016 10:27:49 -0800
James Huang <jamsphon at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Nice to join DPDK community.
> 
> read from DPDK system requirements for Linux
> (http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/linux_gsg/sys_reqs.html)
> 
>   Kernel version >= 2.6.34
> 
> I'd like to know if there is any reason to block DPDK build and run on
> older kernel version, i.e. 2.6.32, as carried on CentOS 6. where
> gcc=4.4.
> 
> Could we just keep our CentOS 6 64bit x86_64 OS and continuing running
> 32bit applications with DPDK injected.
> 
> or, there are good reasons *must* upgrade to CentOS 7, where
> kernel=3.10.0, gcc=4.8, and re-build applications to 64bit as well?
> 
> Thanks a lot!
> 
> 
> James

There are kernel modules, and the DPDK developers have no incentive
do do all the back porting to older kernels. I suspect newer releases
will require 3.2 or later soon.