2.3.0pl1 on Linux

[Richard E. Silverman]

OpenSSH builds and works perfectly under Linux for quite a few people
(including me).

It would be more helpful if you would provide the version of Linux you're
using and the platform.  Also, the details of what goes wrong, instead of
just "it doesn't work," are necessary to give any kind of response.

It is not normally necessary to manually install generate the host key;
"make install" does it if there is not already one installed.  In fact,
the fact that you can connect with PuTTY at all implies that you *do*
have a host key, since sshd would not even run without one.

Are you perhaps thinking that your host key is missing because of the
message about "failing the host key check?"  That doesn't mean the host
key is missing; it means that the host key you have recorded on the PuTTY
client machine does not match the one being used by the SSH server.  That
would happen if you connected once, then used any of the commands you
quoted to generate a new host key, restarted sshd, and connected again.

-- 
  Richard Silverman
  slade at shore.net