Re: modconf, /etc/modules, and /etc/mkinitrd/modules - differences??
On Mon, Aug 12, 2002 at 07:44:12AM -0500, Donald R. Spoon wrote:
> Over the years I have developed a few personal tricks to get proper
> modules loaded at boot time for my NIC, Sound Card, and CD Burner etc.
> With the advent of the new 2.4.XX kernels and the use of initrd in the
> current kernels in Woody, my old tricks don't seem to work as well.
> Some kernel-images come with a set of functions pre-compiled into the
> kernel, others don't. It is hit-or-miss as to having various hardware
> enabled on the initial bootup with a new kernel image, even if it worked
> before. My most recent experience was with going from the
> kernel-image-2.4.17-bf4 package to the kernel-image-2.4.18-k6 package,
> where my NIC didn't work until I inserted the module using modprobe.
>
> 1. Modconf doesn't seem to have any effect when I use it to "insert a
> module into the kernel" anymore. In the above change, I had the
> 8139too.o module selected, but it didn't "work" on the new kernel-image.
AFAIK modconf should still work as advertised...
>
> 2. Inserting a module name into the /etc/modules file "works", but this
> doesn't seem to be a standard file anymore with fresh installs.
I thought all modconf did was manipulate /etc/modules and other related
files once it had worked out that the module could be modprobed.
>
> 3. I really don't understand what should go in /etc/mkinitrd/modules,
> except the "jbd", "ext3", and "ext2" modules really need to be there for
> the system to boot from an ext3 partition. I have experimented with
> placing NIC modules there, but they don't seem to have any effect.
Anything that needs to be there before the root partition can be mounted
needs to be either compiled into the kernel or as a module and in
initrd. For example, if you had an ext3 root filesystem on a SCSI disk,
then ext2, ext3, jbd and the scsi modules would all have to be in the
initrd (short for initial ram disk).
>
> Could someone who understands all this please give me a run-down on the
> various pros and cons of using each these methods for getting a proper
> set of modules loaded for long-term use? I understand how to use
> modprobe for a short-term "testing" fix to get things going, but just
> WHERE should I go to make these permanent after I find the right
> combination?? I am just looking for some guidelines here...
Hmm, modconf has always worked for me. Anyone else have any ideas?
- Chris
Reply to: