Where in the RHEL is my version.h file?

[Victor Odhner]

Kevin Brown wrote:

>> I'm trying to install the ALSA driver package (yes, that one ...) 
>> under CentOS 4.2.  Here's where I'm hung up:
>>
>> ./configure --with-cards=sb16 --with-sequencer=yes \ 
>> --with-kernel=/usr/src/linux-2.6.9-11.EL
>>
>> I get this message: checking for kernel version... The file
>> /usr/src/linux-2.6.9-11.EL/include/linux/version.h does not exist. 
>> Please, install the package with full kernel sources for your 
>> distribution ...
>>
>> It speaks the truth.  The file isn't there, and I think it should be.
>>
>> This was after a few attempts.  I installed
>> kernel-sourcecode-2.6.9-11.EL and the directory
>> /usr/src/linux-2.6.9-11.EL/include/linux is present, but the
>> version.h file does not exist there.
>
> Pretty much a RH noob mistake.  In older versions of RH it was part of
> the kernel-devel package.  Last I checked that got changed to be the
> glibc-kernheaders package.  Any rpm that says source in the name or is
> type src.rpm is usually not what you want to install to solve a
> dependency problem.  You install source packages (those with source in
> the name) if you intend to compile it from scratch in the usual methods
> (e.g. ./configure && make && make install).  You would use .src.rpm
> files if you were going to rebuild a package from scratch for your
> systems with maybe some customization (e.g. rpmbuild --rebuild
> package.src.rpm).
>
>> A number of the header files in that directory do have includes for 
>> <linux/version.h> ... so I searched for any directory or link
>> system-wide named "linux" that might satisfy linux/version.h.  Struck
>> out again.
>>
>> I searched the system for all the version.h files, thinking I could
>> find one to link to, but they all look application specific except
>> for /usr/include/linux/version.h.  That is a strange looking file:
>>
>>   #define UTS_RELEASE "2.4.20"
>>   #define LINUX_VERSION_CODE 132116
>>   #define KERNEL_VERSION(a,b,c) (((a) << 16) + ((b) << 8) + (c))
>>
>> The numbers here don't look right.  And I'm on 2.6.9-22.0.2.EL #1
>> according to uname -a.
>>
>> So ... I'd appreciate any ideas as to how to find (or create?) a
>> version.h file to meet the needs of this ./configure script.  I
>> haven't yet tried hacking into the configure script itself, and hope
>> to avoid that . . . 
>
Thanks, Kevin.  I think you are advising me to install glibc-kernheaders
to get the headers to build these drivers.  I'll try that tonight.

I also assume that the rest of your paragraph was just talking about
when I *would* want to install source, which doesn't apply to my
problem right now.  Right?  This is a tarball install for the drivers,
downloaded from ALSA; the normal rpm installs don't cover sb16.

I installed kernel-sourcecode after seeing advice on a forum, which
apparently solved this problem for somebody.   Did that install the full
source for the kernel?  If so, can I uninstall kernel-sourcecode without
breaking anything?  I'm short on disk space.

Thanks,

Vic