problem building lirc modules

[Rob Owens <rowens@ptd.net>]

When I run 'm-a a-i lirc' I get this error:

        echo "  ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.";               \
        echo "         include/linux/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.";      \
        echo "         Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.";  \

I don't really know how to "Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src".
Could somebody help me out?  I tried running that command in 
/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-5-common but I got these errors, so I assume I did it wrong.

scripts/Makefile.build:44: /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-5-common/scripts/basic/Makefile: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-5-common/scripts/basic/Makefile'.  Stop.
make: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2

-Rob