Should users have to manually modprobe to use standard peripherals?

[Carl Fink <carl@fink.to>]

Twice this week, I've had to become superuser and install kernel modules
manually to make standard peripherals work.  This seems broken to me.

First I had to modprobe usblp to make my Laserjet 1012 work.  Then I had to
modprobe visor to make synchronization with my Palm Tungsten T3 work.

I'm currently using linux-image-2.6.12-1-k7.  I don't recall having to do
that under previous kernel versions.  (I'm running Etch.)  

Users should not, in my not-very-humble-opinion, ever have to become
superuser to print.  For me, an experienced system administrator, this only
wasted half an hour of my life until I figured out the problem.  (Printing
to a USB printer using CUPS is ridiculously complex, and when a step fails
it seemingly never gives a useful error message.)  For a naive user it might
mean "Let's just go to Windows, where printing works."

The visor thing actually threw me completely.  I just today figured out how
to sync again after losing the ability back in August (and posting a
non-answered request for help here in September).  Incredibly annoying.

So: what package does one report "the proper modules didn't load
automatically" against?  I must admit, with the current flux I'm not sure
which program is responsible for detecting hardware.  Hotplug? 
-- 
Carl Fink                                         carl@fink.to
If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be.
	-Bruce Tognazzini