Re: modules.conf maintenance

[Paul Cupis <paul@cupis.co.uk>]

Bill MacAllister wrote:

> I have an Alpha 1000A running Debian Sarge with a 2.4.28 kernel that I
> built.  I decided to try the stock 2.6.8 kernel and used apt-get to
> install it.  The install went just fine, I modified aboot.conf to use
> the initrd images, and the system rebooted fine with the exception that
> I lost the network.  Turns on that this system has a DE500 NIC and I
> forgot that to get it to work I had to load the de4x5 driver.  The
> kernel upgrade wiped out the modules.conf file so it took me a while to
> figure out why booting the old kernel did not work any more either.  So,
> this leaves me with two questions:
> 
>  1. What is the correct way to add entries into modules.conf so that they
>     are preserved through an apt-get kernel upgrade?  The modules.conf
>     file tells you to read the man page for update-modules, but the
>     update-modules man page says that update-modules is obsolete.

As the module.conf file says, you must not edit it directly as your
changes will be lost.

I think adding a file to /etc/modutils and running update-modules is the
solution to this question.

>  2. How do I add the de4x5 module to the stock 2.6.8 kernel?  Has to
>     be done as part of the 2.6.8 kernel install, because if I wait 'til
>     after I can't talk to the apt-get sources any more.

Probably the easiest way to do this is to add a line to /etc/modules
with the name of the module you need loaded.

$ cat /etc/modules
# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file should contain the names of kernel modules that are
# to be loaded at boot time, one per line.  Comments begin with
# a "#", and everything on the line after them are ignored.



Regards,

Paul Cupis
-- 
paul@cupis.co.uk