Can't compile headers on Kali Linux

Question

i have a problem on my kali linux - i wanted to write a simple program which included 3 header files:

#include <linux/input.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

i tried to compile it with gcc (default compilation settings) and then i got a whole bunch of errors one after another, e.g.

/usr/include/linux/cache.h:5:10: fatal error: uapi/linux/kernel.h: No such file or directory
5 | #include <uapi/linux/kernel.h>
  |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

then i tried to locate the uapi/linux/ directory and copy it to /usr/include so compiler can find it, but then

/usr/include/linux/cache.h:5:10: fatal error: uapi/linux/kernel.h: No such file or directory
5 | #include <uapi/linux/kernel.h>
  |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

after several tries of copying directories to /usr/include i finally get error that says type names of "u32", "u16" are unknown (they are for sure defined in some headers). i don't want to mess with my header files on my own because it doesn't work, so what should i do to compile theese headers?

Answer 1

You may have not installed the required linux-headers package, and it should be of the same version as your kernel.

Do note that Kali Linux is based on Debian Testing, while some parts also do come from Unstable or even Experimental, which means you may hit bugs and stability issues.