discover vs modconf, etc

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Didn't know how to title this thread.
Also didn't find much via google, so asking here.

I've just installed a brand new Debian box using unstable and a 2.4.22 
kernel.

I thought "discover" was the new-and-coming thing that would 
automagically find that the box has a USB subsystem and a USB mouse, but 
yet "lsmod" and "dmesg" don't show any USB modules/activity until I 
manually (either using "modconf" or "modprobe") add USB-related modules.

Am I misunderstanding what "discover" does?

What is the canonical way to set up hardware now-a-days? Am I still 
supposed to add modules manually, or is there some automagic way of 
doing it now? Perhaps this is a feature of 2.6 rather than 2.4? (In 
other words, what's the future of hardware setup on Debian look like?)

Thanks!

--
Kent