Software headers in separate packages

2.2.2 Host system software: “Also note that many distributions will place software headers into separate packages…. Be sure to install those if your distribution provides them.”

I googled and then checked with AI Mode each of the essential programs, looking for software headers, -dev, and -devel. Here’s where AI Mode became useful in trying to work out what it is that Ubuntu does with these packages.

In the end, I installed with apt:

  • binutils-dev
  • libbison-dev, which is for bison
  • Python 3.12-dev, which includes zlib1g-dev that is for gzip
  • libtar-dev, which is for tar
  • liblzma-dev, which is for xz

And I didn’t need additional packages for:

  • gcc software headers are already in build-essential
  • linux kernel, already includes linux-headers-generic
  • m4, already included
  • make, none (although I have a note about “extra (?)” that I’m not sure what that is)
  • perl, already included
  • sed, no
  • texinfo, not needed

And some probably didn’t need another package. Most of these I marked “NO?” or “?”

  • bash
  • coreutils
  • diffutils
  • findutils
  • gawk
  • grep
  • patch

I guess we’ll find out if I’ve got everything.