-
-1. If you don't have SCons version 0.96.91 or newer, get it from
-http://wwww.scons.org.
-
-2. If you don't have SWIG version 1.3.28 or newer, get it from
-http://wwww.swig.org.
-
-3. In this directory, type 'scons build/ALPHA_SE/tests/debug/quick'. This
-will build the debug version of the m5 binary (m5.debug) for the Alpha
-syscall emulation target, and run the quick regression tests on it.
-
-If you have questions, please send mail to m5-users@m5sim.org
+External tools and required versions
+
+To build gem5, you will need the following software:
+g++ version 4.3 or newer.
+Python, version 2.4 - 2.7 (we don't support Python 3.X). gem5 links in the
+ Python interpreter, so you need the Python header files and shared
+ library (e.g., /usr/lib/libpython2.4.so) in addition to the interpreter
+ executable. These may or may not be installed by default. For example,
+ on Debian/Ubuntu, you need the "python-dev" package in addition to the
+ "python" package. If you need a newer or different Python installation
+ but can't or don't want to upgrade the default Python on your system,
+ see http://www.gem5.org/Using_a_non-default_Python_installation
+SCons, version 0.98.1 or newer. SCons is a powerful replacement for make.
+ If you don't have administrator privileges on your machine, you can use the
+ "scons-local" package to install scons in your m5 directory, or install SCons
+ in your home directory using the '--prefix=' option.
+SWIG, version 1.3.34 or newer
+zlib, any recent version. For Debian/Ubuntu, you will need the "zlib-dev" or
+ "zlib1g-dev" package to get the zlib.h header file as well as the library
+ itself.
+m4, the macro processor.
+
+
+4. In this directory, type 'scons build/<ARCH>/gem5.opt' where ARCH is one
+of ALPHA, ARM, MIPS, POWER, SPARC, or X86. This will build an optimized version
+of the gem5 binary (gem5.opt) for the the specified architecture.
+
+If you have questions, please send mail to gem5-users@gem5.org