Page "System requirements" Paragraph 11

Operating system is one of the first requirements mentioned when defining system requirements ( software ).

Software may not be compatible with different versions of same line of operating systems, although some measure of backward compatibility is often maintained.

For example, most software designed for Microsoft Windows XP does not run on Microsoft Windows 98, although the converse is not always true.

Similarly, software designed using newer features of Linux Kernel v2. 6 generally does not run or compile properly ( or at all ) on Linux distributions using Kernel v2. 2 or v2. 4.