Re: /etc/modules, /etc/modules.conf and others

[Matthew Weier O'Phinney <matthew@weierophinney.net>]

-- J.F.Gratton <grajea02@hotmail.com> wrote
(on Thursday, 20 February 2003, 09:53 PM -0500):
> I might be using workarounds or not using my system effeciently but ....
> I've never had to tamper with /etc/modules.conf.
> 
> All I did so far to get modules to load and to work was to put them into
> /etc/modules.
> 
> For instance: on a 2.2.x kernel, my NIC module is rtl8139.o . In the
> 2.4.x series, the module has been renamed to 8139too.o (actually it's a
> new module, but let's not split hairs). All I did was to replace the
> rtl8139 entry into /etc/modules with 8139too .
> 
> What is the use of /etc/modules.conf et al. then ?

/etc/modules is used by Debian to manually add modules the user/sysadmin
wishes to load at boot time. After adding them, you then run
'update-modules' as root, which reads this, as well as some files in
/etc/modutils/, to *create* /etc/modules.conf. (This script is run as
part of /etc/init.d/modutils at boot time, in case you're wondering why
you haven't run it yourself and things still worked.)

There's a lot more to it, and this answer is definitely a bit
simplistic, but it's the basic idea -- and it's why you don't need to
(and *SHOULDN'T*) mess with /etc/modules.conf in Debian.

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net