How do I install the kernel headers
 

I was just looking through my packages in Slackware 12.0 and noticed that it had a package for kernel headers. If I wanted to remove this and install a set new headers for the newest kernel, how would I do that? Thanks.

removepkg <packagename>

I know how to remove the package, but then I need to replace the header files somehow. Are there specific directories that need to be copied to /usr/include and is there a tool to copy them or is it done by hand?

What do you mean? You install the header package.

If you are installing headers from a non-slackware tarball, then there are instructions in the tarball.

I mean I have downloaded the 2.6.23.1 kernel which has a large list of include files that need to be installed into /usr/include if I remove the include files from the previous kernel. Is there a set of instructions that tell me which include files to copy from the kernel source.

... from? Which package? C'mon d00d, you've been around long enough to know which information helps. ... you can normally have more than one kernel side-by-side. Kernel headers, like the kernel source, get their own directory in /usr/src go look.

The kernel tarball has instructions for everything you need to do with it.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Slackware and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

If you search for it in the Slackware forum, you will find many posts about this. As long as you not absolutely need it you should not replace the kernel headers. New kernel does not mean you have to install new headers. glibc (AFAIK) is compiled against the "original" headers that come with Slackware and these headers should stay in place usually.

Do NOT upgrade your kernel headers EVER, please, just don't. They are not made to be upgraded, it will cause all sorts of problems if you try. It has to do with the version of glibc the kernel was compiled with and other things.

Or another good thread.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ackage-599357/
unfortunately someone marked it as "bad advice" but it's actually good advice. well most of it.

I must say, you got really lucky. When I said that I had installed the headers from all the kernels which I have compiled for all of my Slack machines, I barely limped away with my pants in tatters, and my backside bloodied. You'd have thought I told someone I just shot the Pope.

I received thrashings. I received dire prognostications about what would soon be happening to my computers, all of which had been running as trouble-free as any operating system had ever run. I was told of all manner of devilment; of strange errors in my executables, instability, and other even more frightful troubles that awaited me.

Eeek, there on my screen!!! 0101100101000000

Curiously, I was never given a time line on when I was to expect all this digital apocalypse to come to pass. I wasn't told which of the four binary horsemen would be galloping through my window. I wasn't told which plagues and signs would herald the arrival of my computers' last stands.

Ironically, I did lose a computer today. Debby-anne, my ever-faithful print server registered one too many bits, and has gone to that great reward, the sweet digital by and by. I say ironically, because that machine ran Debian (go figure the name...), and although it was running kernel version 2.6.23.9 at the time of its demise, Debian sets up kernels differently than Slackware. It uses a completely different program to do the deed once you configure it. So I have no idea whether or not it installed new headers as a part of its ritual. If it did, then perhaps that's why it died. If not, then I am at a loss.

Where were the dire warnings and prognostications on that? HUH? Why didn't anyone tell me to get ready for Debby-anne's motherboard was getting ready to die a horrid death? hehehehe

Anyway, it can be done, but I won't tell you how here. Read all the links that others have given; the warnings. If you still want to know how to make that happen, I can tell you.

If, after reading the warnings, you still want to know, click this link to my web site, go down to the bottom of the page, and email me. I'll tell you how to do it.

But watch out, doing so might make a completely unrelated computer go down for a completely unrelated reason.

:rolleyes:

Blessed be!
Pappy

Pappy

You got flamed for a reason. You were advising people based on what you learnt yourself in Slackware. That is good. Everybody learns like that. But the advise you gave was not good - it was based on the fact that you learnt to do things the wrong way. The fact that your computers did not explode is of no relevance. You stated that you managed to keep your computers running, using that as justification for the correctness of your views. It can be that you got lucky, I don't know.

However, people providing incorrect information to others who come here with questions will quickly be corrected by other posters, as you found out.

Your problem was that you defended your opinions regardless of what other people were trying to explain to you. You even went as far as to state that you broke your computers' software installation all the time - which is solid proof for those who wanted to warn other readers not to use the information you were supplying.

Eric

There is no problem. You can reinstall normal headers anyway when you mess your system installing others. BTW, you can install Slackware provided kernel headers without problems.

Unless you've compiled some software *after* installing incorrect headers, and that software depends on newer functions available only in the (newer) incorrect headers. After you replace the (newer, incorrect) headers with the correct ones, that software will no longer work.