On Mon, 2002-09-23 at 14:42, Campbell McLeay wrote: > Hi, > > I was wondering whether it is necessary to download kernel headers > for the kernel you are compiling. I have rarely bothered with this and > things have seemed to work (maybe by sheer luck than anything!). > Come to that - what are they actually used for? I thought I read > that they are used for compiling applications 'against'. Do they > have to be in any particular place (e.g., if you were compiling > a kernel in /usr/home/cm/linux-2.4.19 should you stick them in > /usr/home/cm?
I have pondered this also, and it turns out that I'm not the only one. The people on the mandrake cooker lists got really annoyed recently when someone (not me, phew!) asked about this. Apparently the kernel-headers package is supposed to match the version of the kernel that your glibc was built with. You'll notice that when the kernel itself compiles it acutally explicitly includes the header files that come with it. If you want more info, search the archives of the mandrake cooker list and you'll find all manner of annoyed responses. The most recent one was "No.". HTH James. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
