This is excerpted from a newletter put out by the linuxvoodo web site.
<snip>
____________________Linux Tip of the Day______________________
--Annoying boot messages--
When recompiling your kernel, you might end up seeing
strange messages on bootup like:
modprobe: cannot find net-pf-5
modprobe: cannot find char-major-14
These are messages from the modules loader telling you that
he can't find specific modules. This usualy
happens when you compile modules, but modprobe tries to
load modules that were not compiled and it can't find them.
The way to remove those messages is to set the modules to
off. In the file /etc/conf.modules you may want to add:
alias net-pf-5 off
alias char-major-14 off
This will stop modprobe from trying to load them. Of course
you could also try to resove the problem by compiling the
modules and make sure modprobe knows where they are.
</snip>
Seems a bit simplistic.
My question has always been ... what are these modules, where do they
come from and why might I need them - what kernel option causes them to
be built or not ... how can I find this out for a particular module?
Is there a 'debian way' to control modprobe / module loading from one
kernel config to another? I have read the kernel-compiling' and
modules howto, and they seem a bit light on this topic.
Any pointers.
aloha,
dave