Primer needed on modconf and friends.

[Bill Moseley <moseley@hank.org>]

Is there a good summary document that explains modconf and /etc/modules.conf 
in Debian? 

I'm trying to get my sound working, but figured it would be a good reason to 
get a better understanding of modules.  I'm going to sound clueless here, so 
you might as well assume that I am. ;)

With that said, I think I understand insmod, depmod, and modpropbe, and that 
on boot the /etc/init.d/modutils calls modprobe for all the modules listed in 
/etc/modules.

But I don't understand how /etc/modules.conf fits into the system, and how to 
use modconf.  Or why it's needed over just adding module names to 
/etc/modules.

I hope with a better understanding of modules I see why I'm getting:

    modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-10-135

I'm just trying to understand how all the parts fit together, and why.

In an attempt to get sound working I installed the alsa package, but it's 
looking for the "snd" module.

   Starting ALSA sound driver (version none):modprobe: Can't locate module snd
   failed.

This is what modules I have available:

    # ls -l /lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/drivers/sound
    total 140
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        15156 Mar  8 13:16 ac97_codec.o
    drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         4096 Mar  8 13:18 emu10k1
    -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        83574 Mar  8 13:16 sound.o

My wife just gave me a blank stare when I discussed this with her, so allow 
me to ask something else:

In the /etc/rc*.d directories there are both K and S symlinks.  I always 
assumed if you went from, say, runlevel 2 to run level 3 first all the 
/etc/rc2.d/K* scripts were called with "stop" and then all the /etc/rc3.d/S* 
scripts are run.  I read in the Debian Policy Manual 10.3.1 that's not how it 
works.  Instead going from runlevel 2 to 3, all the K's are run in rc3.d and 
then all the S scripts in rc3.d.

This seems counter intuitive to me.  Can someone explain why it works that 
way?


Thanks,

-- 
Bill Moseley