Debian kernel / paralles-config problems

I'm a newbie here and to linux. I'm sorry for the long post but I hope that someone can help get me on the right track.

I come from a Windows/Cygwin environment and would like to move to a primary linux OS with a guest WinXP OS -- I'm hoping to eventually find replacements for all my Windows apps on the linux side.

Here's my problem. I wanted to install the supported/recommended kernel 2.6.8-2-386 on Debian 3.1. I couldn't find an iso for this. So, I found a netinstall iso for 2.6.18-4-686 and thought that I'd start with this kernel and in the worst case I could compile the kernel package for the older kernel and get it running afterwards. Well, I compiled 2.6.8-2-386 but I didn't have any luck getting it to boot (I think this is because I have SATA drives), so I thought I'd just try to install Parallels on my 2.6.18-4.686 kernel.

I followed the installation instructions in the guide and installed Paralles-2.2.2112-lin.deb successfully. My problem comes when I run parallels-config ... I get the message "Unable to find linux kernel source ...", and then I'm offered advice on how to get the kernel source.

So, I followed these instructions. I figure that I should really get the kernel headers for the supported 2.6.8-2-386 and I try "apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.8-2-386"; response: "Couldn't find package ...". Then I tried ""apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.18-4-686" to get the headers for my current kernel; response: "Couldn't find package ...".

I guess at this point I'm wondering:

1. Should this be so difficult?
2. The supported kernels that are listed are so specific: if I can't find it or want to update my kernel in the future will I be able to and will Parallels still function? (if I can get it running in the first place)
3. Would I be better off running another linux flavour like Ubuntu?

I'd be very appreciative for any guidance or input that anyone here may offer.

 

If you installed Debian with the 2.6.18-4-626 kernel, then you have the Etch repository. Can you post your /etc/apt/sources.list file? I think you need at least 2 lines:

The second line should have the sources for your kernel in your repository, once you run:

Code:

apt-get update

I would suggest running the following command to find the correct package you're looking for:

Code:

apt-get search linux-headers

 

Titanium, thanks for your response. I think this problem is solved , kinda ! See below for more.

Here's my /etc/apt/sources.list:

It looked the same before and after I ran 'apt-get update'.

When I do 'apt-cache search linux-headers' I get:

After this I still received the same error from parallels-config: 'Unable to find linux kernel source ...'.

Previously I had installed linux-headers-2.6.18-4-686. But, in this search I noticed the headers for Xen and thought that maybe these would be related to my parallels-config issues. Since I couldn't decide which to get, and I'm lazy, I just took the brute-force approach and installed linux-headers-2.6.18-4-all.

Now paralles-config returns:

I'll have to check this error:

... but I'm now a lot closer to getting Parallels working.

 

Looks like you need the libstdc++, libstdc++-dev packages to nail this error in the coffin.