Are Linux Headers installed by default? How to check if they're installed?
Solution 1:
The linux headers are installed by default (See the 14.04 manifest file for example)
The linux-headers-generic package will always depend on the latest generic kernel headers available.
To check the current version, open a Terminal and type:
$ dpkg-query -s linux-headers-generic
Package: linux-headers-generic
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: kernel
Installed-Size: 33
Maintainer: Ubuntu Kernel Team <[email protected]>
Architecture: amd64
Source: linux-meta
Version: 3.11.0.20.21
Depends: linux-headers-3.11.0-20-generic
Description: Generic Linux kernel headers
This package will always depend on the latest generic kernel headers
available.
Solution 2:
You can just open up the Software Center or Synaptic and make sure the package "linux-headers-generic" is installed. That package is marked to depend on the headers for the latest available kernel version, so it will pull in another package or two for your particular kernel version.
Edit: You can also just open a command line and run:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
If it's already installed then it'll say so, and if not it'll ask you to verify you want to install the package.
Solution 3:
Kind of late, but I found this question with no interesting answer so here is the real way to do it so you know WITHOUT installing, which I think was what you wanted to begin with :
apt list linux-headers*
Output is going to be a linux-headers list with some with [installed] specified, such as this :
linux-headers-5.10.0-kali9-amd64/kali-rolling,now 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64 [installed]
linux-headers-5.10.0-kali9-cloud-amd64/kali-rolling 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64
linux-headers-5.10.0-kali9-common-rt/kali-rolling 5.10.46-4kali1 all
linux-headers-5.10.0-kali9-common/kali-rolling,now 5.10.46-4kali1 all [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-5.10.0-kali9-rt-amd64/kali-rolling 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64
linux-headers-amd64/kali-rolling,now 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64 [installed]
linux-headers-cloud-amd64/kali-rolling 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64
linux-headers-rt-amd64/kali-rolling 5.10.46-4kali1 amd64here