kernel and modules compiling

[zhaoway <zhaoway@990.net>]

Hello Debian-user,

  20 minutes ago, I did a re-compile of the kernel and modules.
  I'm  new  to debian, have played with Linux for more than
  half a year. Somebody had just talking about kernel compiling
  here in this list: Is this easy enough?

  O.K., my experience:

  Following the instructions of README in /usr/src/linux,
  compiling the kernel is easy. Even with make config,
  since there're lot of '?'s, and my box, except the sound card,
  is very normal, config is not difficult. And make dep; make;
  cp .. /boot/.., all are very straight. Documented very well.

  But then modules. Following modules.txt, make modules, make
  modules_install are ok..

  Then reboot: a lot of "unresolved ....."!
  In fact, I've experienced this, so I went to /lib/modules/...
  did a depmod -a. My question is why this is not documented in
  the modules.txt? It only says depmod -a is need in init script.
  But seems this is not the case in my box.(?) I need do this
  right after modules installed.

  Then reboot: "linear and char-major-10 and net-pf-5 trouble"!
  I must say I'm an accomplished guesser 8), I went to /etc,
  do a ls, guess on the file names, bingo! vi modules,
  comment linear; vi conf.modules
  Guess again (with help of comments), uncomment net-pf-5,
  add a char-major-10 off. I must say I do not understand
  even one bit of this file. But my guess works! Hehe,
  My question again: why not documented?
  I know this surely's been documented somewhere since it's
  very important. But I'd like to see it in the modules.txt
  or modules.Debian.txt 'cause that's why I will look
  for the answer when compiling kernel and modules and encountering
  problems. I do not think I should read all of the
  man pages and info pages before I could say that I do not want
  that 700k kernel and want a 300k one. At least a link,
  like in the README says "when do modules, read modules.txt",
  right?

  It's clear, hence easy, but not enough.

Best regards,
 Zhaoway                          mailto:zhaoway@990.net