Table of Contents

How To Search For Missing Packages With apt-file On Debian and Ubuntu

1 Initital Situation

I guess you all know this: you try to compile some software from the sources, and suddenly the compilation stops because it complains that some file is missing of which you have never heard before:

root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# make
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'
Making all in src
make[2]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'
if gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -DORBIT2=1 -pthread -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/libwnck-1.0 -I/usr/include/gconf/2 -I/usr/include/orbit-2.0 -DDATADIR=\“”/usr/local/share“\” -DGNOMELOCALEDIR=\“”/usr/local/share/locale“\” -g -O2 -Wall -pedantic -std=c99 -fno-strict-aliasing -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -MT main.o -MD -MP -MF “.deps/main.Tpo” -c -o main.o main.c; \
then mv -f “.deps/main.Tpo” “.deps/main.Po”; else rm -f “.deps/main.Tpo”; exit 1; fi
<color red>main.c:21:21: error: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory</color>
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2 Install apt-file

apt-file is installed as follows: 

# apt-get install apt-file

After the installation, we must update apt-file's package database like this: 

# apt-file update

You must also do this whenever you modify /etc/apt/sources.list.

3 Search For Packages

Now let's search for the package containing the file gtk/gtk.h. You could search like this: 

# apt-file search gtk.h

but this would give back lots of packages, so let's narrow down the search by running: 

# apt-file search gtk/gtk.h

The output looks like this: 

root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# apt-file search gtk/gtk.h 
libgfcui-dev: usr/include/gfc-2.0/gfc/gtk/gtk.hh 
libgtk+2.0-directfb-dev: usr/include/directfb/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h 
libgtk1.2-dev: usr/include/gtk-1.2/gtk/gtk.h 
libgtk2.0-dev: usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h 
libgtk2.0-doc: usr/share/doc/libgtk2.0-doc/gtk/gtk.html 
root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#

As you see there are three packages containing gtk/gtk.h (one contains gtk/gtk.hh, another one gtk/gtk.html which is not what we are looking for), and it's now up to you to install the right one. If you are unsure, you can install all three packages, or you install one after the other and check after each one if the compilation error still occurs. In our case the right package is libgtk2.0-dev, so we install that one: 

# apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

Now we try the compilation again: 

root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# make
make all-recursive
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'
Making all in src
make[2]: Entering directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'
if gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I.. -DORBIT2=1 -pthread -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/libwnck-1.0 -I/usr/include/gconf/2 -I/usr/include/orbit-2.0 -DDATADIR=\""/usr/local/share"\" -DGNOMELOCALEDIR=\""/usr/local/share/locale"\" -g -O2 -Wall -pedantic -std=c99 -fno-strict-aliasing -fmessage-length=0 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -MT main.o -MD -MP -MF ".deps/main.Tpo" -c -o main.o main.c; \
then mv -f ".deps/main.Tpo" ".deps/main.Po"; else rm -f ".deps/main.Tpo"; exit 1; fi
In file included from /usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtk.h:170,
from main.c:21:
/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:52: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ
/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:53: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ
/usr/include/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtktextbuffer.h:55: warning: ISO C restricts enumerator values to range of âintâ
In file included from main.c:28:
awn-app.h:30:29: error: libwnck/libwnck.h: No such file or directory
In file included from main.c:28:
awn-app.h:60: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before âWnckWindowâ
awn-app.h:80: warning: struct has no members
awn-app.h:83: error: expected â)â before â*â token
main.c: In function âmainâ:
main.c:52: warning: unused variable âlabâ
make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1/src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2
root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#

As you see, the initial error is now gone, but still another file is missing, libwnck/libwnck.h, so let's search for the missing package: 

# apt-file search libwnck/libwnck.h

This time we're lucky, there's only one package containing that file: 

root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1# apt-file search libwnck/libwnck.h
libwnck-dev: usr/include/libwnck-1.0/libwnck/libwnck.h
root@falko-desktop:~/avant-window-navigator-0.1.1#

So let's install the missing package: 

# apt-get install libwnck-dev

Source: http://www.howtoforge.com/apt_file_debian_ubuntu