Ooh! modconf! It wasn't installed (how would I know?).
After each install of a Debian system I always install "modconf", "vim"
and "fbset" since I can't believe any sensible system is usable without
them. Especially modconf is a must. Most of the time I add "most" to get
rid of "more" and "less".
When I tried to install modules, it complained that modprobe.conf wasn't
there. So I created an empty modprobe.conf and was able to install the
modules (which caused problems with X, so I deleted it again). Was that an
appropriate action?
Simply installing modconf should be enough.
O. Wyss