[PATCH 5/5] INSTALL: Make note that linux kernel 6.12.x or earlier is needed

Glenn Washburn
2025-11-18T00:02:54Z

Also, remove wording suggesting that tests may be skipped if prerequisites
are not installed. Tests should never be skipped because of an environment
misconfiguration, instead they should return a hard error (code 99).

Signed-off-by: Glenn Washburn <development@efficientek.com>
---
INSTALL | 8 +++++---
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 22b68cb6c766..4262bf3cd35c 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ More cross compiling toolchains can be found at the following trusted sites:
* https://mirrors.kernel.org/pub/tools/crosstool/
* https://toolchains.bootlin.com/

-Prerequisites for make-check:
+Prerequisites for running make-check successfully:

* qemu, specifically the binary "qemu-system-ARCH" where ARCH is the
architecture GRUB has been built for; the "qemu-system" package on Debian
@@ -86,6 +86,8 @@ Prerequisites for make-check:
reiserfs, udf, xfs
- On newer kernels, the exfat kernel modules may be used instead of the
exfat FUSE filesystem
+ - Kernel version 6.12.x was the last series to include reiserfs support,
+ so later kernels will fail the reiser filesystem test.
* The following are Debian named packages required mostly for the full
suite of filesystem testing (but some are needed by other tests as well):
- btrfs-progs, dosfstools, e2fsprogs, erofs-utils, exfatprogs, exfat-fuse,
@@ -96,8 +98,8 @@ Prerequisites for make-check:
- attr, cpio, g++, gawk, parted, recode, tar, util-linux

Note that `make check' will run and many tests may complete successfully
-with only a subset of these prerequisites. However, some tests may be
-skipped or fail due to missing prerequisites.
+with only a subset of these prerequisites. However, some tests may fail
+due to missing prerequisites.

To build the documentation you'll need:
* texinfo, for the info and html documentation