which packages to install to compile kernel modules?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Mon, 14 Jun 2010, sktsee wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:49:28 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >
> >   ok, so one more question (ok, two).  first, what's the command to
> > display the actual packages that a metapackage represents?

... snip ...

> $ apt-cache depends build-essential
> build-essential
>  |Depends: libc6-dev
>   Depends: <libc-dev>
>     libc6-dev
>   Depends: g++
>   Depends: make
>   Depends: dpkg-dev

  ok, that was suitably embarrassing and i am chagrined that i didn't
know that.  onward.

> >   and second, i can see on this system that there are two /usr/src
> > directories that correspond to my running kernel:
> >
> > drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 2010-06-05 09:04 linux-headers-2.6.32-22
> > drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 2010-06-05 09:05
> > linux-headers-2.6.32-22-generic
> >
> >   so what's the rationale behind having *two* /usr/src directories per
> > kernel?  (i come from a fedora background where there was only one.)
> >
> >   does the "generic" suffix mean architecture independent?  what's the
> > distinguishing feature by which some headers are placed in one subdir
> > but not the other?  thanks.
>
> I'm not sure. It appears that linux-headers-2.6.32-22 contains the
> full on kernel headers for all architectures and drivers, while
> linux- headers-2.6.32-22-generic selectively links to files and
> directories that are specific for building modules for the "generic"
> kernel. I supposed this is mostly a housekeeping feature to allow
> compilation of modules for different kernel flavors on the same
> machine. Just a guess, though.

  i guessed something along those lines, and i won't worry too much
about it as i don't think it's going to affect my module building.
i'm still curious about the rationale though if anyone knows for sure.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

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