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-rw-r--r--docs/about/build-platforms.rst32
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diff --git a/docs/about/build-platforms.rst b/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
index 1c1e7b9e11..20b97c3310 100644
--- a/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
+++ b/docs/about/build-platforms.rst
@@ -86,6 +86,38 @@ respective ports repository, while NetBSD will use the pkgsrc repository.
For macOS, `Homebrew`_ will be used, although `MacPorts`_ is expected to carry
similar versions.
+Some build dependencies may follow less conservative rules:
+
+Python runtime
+ Distributions with long-term support often provide multiple versions
+ of the Python runtime. While QEMU will initially aim to support the
+ distribution's default runtime, it may later increase its minimum version
+ to any newer python that is available as an option from the vendor.
+ In this case, it will be necessary to use the ``--python`` command line
+ option of the ``configure`` script to point QEMU to a supported
+ version of the Python runtime.
+
+ As of QEMU |version|, the minimum supported version of Python is 3.6.
+
+Python build dependencies
+ Some of QEMU's build dependencies are written in Python. Usually these
+ are only packaged by distributions for the default Python runtime.
+ If QEMU bumps its minimum Python version and a non-default runtime is
+ required, it may be necessary to fetch python modules from the Python
+ Package Index (PyPI) via ``pip``, in order to build QEMU.
+
+Optional build dependencies
+ Build components whose absence does not affect the ability to build
+ QEMU may not be available in distros, or may be too old for QEMU's
+ requirements. Many of these, such as the Avocado testing framework
+ or various linters, are written in Python and therefore can also
+ be installed using ``pip``. Cross compilers are another example
+ of optional build-time dependency; in this case it is possible to
+ download them from repositories such as EPEL, to use container-based
+ cross compilation using ``docker`` or ``podman``, or to use pre-built
+ binaries distributed with QEMU.
+
+
Windows
-------