source? documentation?

KansaiRobot · 10-07-2014, 11:15 PM

Questions about basic concepts.

Suppose I have a linux system installed (Actually I have two: a Debian one and a Ubuntu one)

Many times I have read advice saying : "read the source code", or "read the documentation" etc.

Where is that???

I thought it was on /usr/src

but my debian system has very few things there and no documentation

(havent checked the ubuntu yet)

thanks a lot

btmiller · 10-07-2014, 11:33 PM

On Debian and Ubuntu, check in /usr/share/doc for documentation on installed packages. To read the source, you'll generally have to install the Debian source package, which can be done with the "source" option to apt-get. Also, much documentation and source files can be found on-line if you Google for the particular information you are interested in.

One final hint - for usage info about a particular command, typing "man <command name>" will often prove helpful...

KansaiRobot · 10-07-2014, 11:45 PM

thank you very much for your helpful reply!
I actually want the source since I am trying to compile my first device driver and it requires linking it to the source it seems

so far I have been unsucessful.

the ubuntu one has on /usr/src the following:

linux-headers-3.13.0-24
linux-headers-3.13.0-24-generic

which is which? what is the difference between these?

so the source package is not installed by default??

thanks in advance

pan64 · 10-08-2014, 12:42 AM

by default the sources not installed they are usually not required. linux-headers-3.13.0-24 contains not the sources but the headers (only) and only for the linux kernel itself.
If you want to have the sources for a package you need to install the related sources. See here: https://wiki.debian.org/PackageManagement (especially at the bottom, link to SourcePackage)