Hello,
I recently upgraded from a fairly old distro to a recent one (slackware 12.2 in case it matters) that came with the 2.6.27.7 kernel.

One of the things I noticed is that the kernel headers aren't accessed by a link like they used to be. I am used to /usr/include/linux being a link to the /usr/src/linux/include/linux and the asm stuff being similarly linked to the relevant kernel source directory. Now they are actual directories. When I do diff on a random file in the /usr/include/linux directory compared to the matching file in the installed source tree they come up different.

All this came up because I am in the process of upgrading the kernel. I did a search on the subject and came up with a thread saying that you didn't need to worry about it, and in fact shouldn't use the actual kernel headers, but no explanation.

So my question, why not? My instincts say that if I am compiling stuff against a kernel I should be using that kernel's headers.

If there is a complete explanation somewhere a link to it would be great.

Thanks

This is one of those questions where I have trouble seeing the point. When I compile a kernel, I don't do anything in particular about kernel headers. Anything that actually needs to reference headers can find them through /lib/modules/`uname -r` anyway. Of course, I don't remove my kernel source trees, so that's one possible issue. IOW, if you must remove your kernel source trees, then you'll need to make the headers.

At this time, the only thing I can think of that I use that's an issue is VirtualBox and my Nvidia driver.

Okay, got it.

It just wasn't the way I was used to.

Thanks for the info, my world is now stable again