I've seen a few questions about linux-headers packages but couldn't find anything to address my specific issue.
I'm on Kubuntu 16.04, and I got the following error (from VirtualBox):
Please install the Linux kernel "header" files matching the current kernel for adding new hardware support to the system. The distribution packages containing the headers are probably:
linux-headers-generic linux-headers-4.13.0-43-generic
I was surprised to see that linux-headers-generic
was not installed, although I'm not really sure if it's supposed to be there by default.
In any case, while the kernel is 4.13.0-43-generic, the corresponding headers are, indeed, not installed:
$ uname -r
4.13.0-43-generic
$ aptitude search linux-headers | grep ^i
id linux-headers-4.13.0-32 - Header files related to Linux kernel versi
id linux-headers-4.13.0-32-generic - Linux kernel headers for version 4.13.0 on
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-37 - Header files related to Linux kernel versi
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-37-generic - Linux kernel headers for version 4.13.0 on
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-38 - Header files related to Linux kernel versi
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-38-generic - Linux kernel headers for version 4.13.0 on
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-39 - Header files related to Linux kernel versi
i A linux-headers-4.13.0-39-generic - Linux kernel headers for version 4.13.0 on
The linux-headers-generic
"will always depend on the latest generic kernel headers available", so I thought that installing it would install the latest packages (in this case, linux-headers-4.13.0-43-generic
as required by VirtualBox) and keep them up to date.
However, if I try that, I'm asked to install what appear to be really old packages:
$ sudo aptitude install linux-headers-generic
The following NEW packages will be installed:
linux-headers-4.4.0-127{a} linux-headers-4.4.0-127-generic{a} linux-headers-generic
0 packages upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.8 MB of archives. After unpacking 78.4 MB will be used.
There's also a package called linux-headers-generic-lts-xenial
, but it does, more or less, the same thing.
So, my questions:
- Should either of the linux-headers-generic packages have been there by default? Which one?
- Do I need to install either of them in my case?
- If I install the necessary
linux-headers-4.13.0-43-generic
package directly, what happens when the kernel is upgraded?