E: Unable to find a source package for gcc-4.8.1

Question

I trying to follow the instruction from this site to build an i386-elf cross-compiler. At first I tried to download a cross-compiler from the mirrors the author provided. But when I noticed that those mirrors where out dated I decided to build the cross-compiler myself. When I entered this command:

sudo apt-get source binutils gcc-4.1

I got this error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to find a source package for gcc-4.1

I don't blame the terminal! How is it suppose to know where to find this package? Can anyone tell me how it's suppose to find the package and why it can't find it?

Answer 1

You missed the 8. and wrote a minor version number, which is not included in package names - to get GCC from the 4.8 series you should enter:

sudo apt-get source binutils gcc-4.8

Answer 2

Perhaps source code repositories are not enabled in apt?