Gotcha! I haven't used a stock kernel in so long that it wouldn't occur to me that I needed to get the header package.

Farslayer: I use Synaptic to most things, it's much easier than remembering everything.

I can understand the comfort of a GUI.. It just seems to take forever when searching for packages I want to install. Once you get familiar with the command line package tools you can do so much more at a faster rate... Of course I grew up with DOS, and 8 Bit machines spending considerable amounts of time at the command line, so it's like going back home for me

Nothing wrong with using synaptic though.. that's what it's there for.

I agree - I use the command line for all machine maintenance because it's just faster and like you said, comfortable. I was just whining before about the "debian way" because compared to Gentoo, it seemed strange in comparison. I do use synaptic for removing things like Mono, for example because I can search for a package and select all instances for complete removal. If I am looking for one package though, apt-cache search is much better, at least for me.

Funny, I didn't "grow up" on the command line but moved there after years of using Linux. When I first started using Linux about 11 years ago, I was not comfortable on the command line at all - I wanted to run a graphical file manager and text editor do do maintenance tasks. I can't imagine doing that now, for many of the reasons you mentioned.