8

I'm debugging a closed-source software installer that seems to have some pre-conceived notions about my distribution. The installation aborts after not finding apt-get. The command it attempts to run is:

apt-get -y -q install linux-headers-3.7.5-1-ARCH

I suppose the "package name" comes from /usr/src, where the sole entry is linux-3.7.5-1-ARCH. Does anyone have any educated guess as to which package I should install with pacman?

The headers are probably going to be used to compile drivers for custom hardware.

Here is some relevant text from the install log:

NOTE: Linux drivers must be built against the kernel sources for the kernel that your Linux OS is currently running. This script automates this task for you.

NOTE: You must have the Linux OS kernel header source files installed. If you plan on running the Jungo Debug Monitor, then you may also need to install "compat-libstdc++" and "libpng3".

Your Linux is currently running the following kernel version:
3.7.5-1-ARCH

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
8

You're running Arch linux. According to pacman -Q -i linux-headers, the package "linux-headers" contains "Header files and scripts for building modules for linux kernel". When the linux kernel gets built, various constants, which might be numbers or strings or what have you, get defined. Some loadable modules need to know those numbers or strings. The files in "linux-headers" should contain all the build-specific numbers, strings etc for the kernel, in your case kernel version 3.7.5-1 .

You can see what files package "linux-headers" owns: pacman -Q -l linux-headers

You can install package "linux-headers" as root: pacman -S linux-headers

The "apt-get" part of the script seems to assume you're running Debian or a derivative. Install linux-headers with pacman and see how it goes.

Improve this answer
1
  • While trying to get VirtualBox guest additions working with arch, this worked for me. I also needed to run pacman -S dkms as dkms was not yet installed, though I'm not 100% sure if it was necessary as the VirtualBox install didn't mention any error about it not being there.
    – abelito
    Mar 24, 2019 at 19:53
1

You're running Arch Linux, which does not use apt-get as it's package handling utility. Arch Linux uses pacman instead.

The linux-headers package in many Linux distributions generally contain the C header files (files with the .h extension) for the Linux kernel. These files generally define constants and functions that can be used by other programs and drivers.

You generally need the kernel header files in order to compile and install 3rd party drivers for the kernel.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .