Hi Martin,

I redid an installation to try to determine what the deal is with installed packages.

First, something that *may* be affecting behavior here. This system is behind a non-transparent proxy, so it is unable to access the internet without extra configuration.

Also, notice that on this particular test I used a system different from the original reported one, and I'm cheating a bit, as it doesn't actually have an nvidia chipset. But the package *should* build correctly. I can repeat this if needed on the actual nvidia system (running some other tests on it but should be available in a few hours). But I expect the results would be the same.

Here's what I did:

1- Installed Ubuntu 12.10 from a USB stick. This was a mostly default install. I did NOT click on the "install 3rd party software" checkbox.
2- Once the system booted I did dpkg --list, it's a largish list so I'll attach it as as file. I notice only a linux-headers-3.5.0-17 package is installed:

$ grep linux-header packagelist.txt 
ii  linux-headers-3.5.0-17                    3.5.0-17.28                               all          Header files related to Linux kernel version 3.5.0

3- I configured the proxy for apt-get by adding this under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80proxy:

Acquire::http::proxy "my-super-secret-proxy";

4- I then did sudo apt-get update, and afterwards I *do* see a bit more information about linux headers:

$ dpkg --list "linux-header*"
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                            Version              Architecture         Description
+++-===============================-====================-====================-====================================================================
un  linux-headers                   <none>                                    (no description available)
un  linux-headers-3                 <none>                                    (no description available)
ii  linux-headers-3.5.0-17          3.5.0-17.28          all                  Header files related to Linux kernel version 3.5.0
un  linux-headers-generic           <none>                                    (no description available)

Do notice that linux-headers-generic is *not* installed.

5- sudo apt-get install nvidia-current. Results in this (notice the linux-headers-generic wasn't listed as a package to install, and it fails to build the driver.

$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done

The following extra packages will be installed:
  dkms fakeroot nvidia-settings python-xkit screen-resolution-extra
Suggested packages:
  dpkg-dev debhelper
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  dkms fakeroot nvidia-current nvidia-settings python-xkit screen-resolution-extra
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 23 not upgraded.
Need to get 69.7 MB of archives.
After this operation, 209 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
[Snip, fetching packages]              
Fetched 69.7 MB in 1s (36.6 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package dkms.
(Reading database ... 144531 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking dkms (from .../dkms_2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package fakeroot.
Unpacking fakeroot (from .../fakeroot_1.18.4-2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package nvidia-current.
Unpacking nvidia-current (from .../nvidia-current_304.51.really.304.43-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package python-xkit.
Unpacking python-xkit (from .../python-xkit_0.5.0_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package screen-resolution-extra.
Unpacking screen-resolution-extra (from .../screen-resolution-extra_0.15_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package nvidia-settings.
Unpacking nvidia-settings (from .../nvidia-settings_304.51-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Setting up dkms (2.2.0.3-1.1ubuntu1) ...
Setting up fakeroot (1.18.4-2) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/fakeroot-sysv to provide /usr/bin/fakeroot (fakeroot) in auto mode
Setting up nvidia-current (304.51.really.304.43-0ubuntu1) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf to provide /etc/ld.so.conf.d/x86_64-linux-gnu_GL.conf (x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf) in auto mode
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/nvidia-current/alt_ld.so.conf to provide /etc/ld.so.conf.d/i386-linux-gnu_GL.conf (i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) in auto mode
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
INFO:Enable nvidia-current
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/dell_latitude
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/lenovo_thinkpad
DEBUG:Parsing /usr/share/ubuntu-drivers-common/quirks/put_your_quirks_here
DEBUG:Processing quirk Latitude E6530
DEBUG:Failure to match TOSHIBA with Dell Inc.
DEBUG:Quirk doesn't match
DEBUG:Processing quirk ThinkPad T420s
DEBUG:Failure to match TOSHIBA with LENOVO
DEBUG:Quirk doesn't match
Loading new nvidia-current-304.43 DKMS files...
First Installation: checking all kernels...
Building only for 3.5.0-17-generic
Building for architecture x86_64
Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.
Setting up python-xkit (0.5.0) ...
Setting up screen-resolution-extra (0.15) ...
Setting up nvidia-settings (304.51-0ubuntu2) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/nvidia-settings/ld.so.conf to provide /etc/ld.so.conf.d/nvidia_settings.conf (nvidia_settings_conf) in auto mode
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic
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