Linus is talking about the /usr/include/asm symlink, not the /usr/src/kernel-source-U-downloaded /usr/src/linux one. The latter is unnecessary but harmless. There are (or were) distributions that included packages that looked for things in /usr/src, but I don't think any Debian packages do anything that dumb (though it's possible that some closed-source drivers may). -- John Hasler