installing 'hotplug' disrupts device management

[tom arnall <kloro2006@gmail.com>]

last night i installed 'hotplug', trying to get a usb wireless device to work. 
after, per the installer instructions, rebooting the system, a number of my 
devices were not recognized by the system, or similar. 

details:

	'usbserial' and 'visor' not loaded at boot
	
	/dev/pilot no longer existed, i.e., 'ls /dev/pilot' got 'not found,' so i 
couldn't hot sync my pda (dealt with this by fooling around with ttyUSB0/1 as 
the device for kpilot and, of course, 'modprobe'ing usbserial and visor)
	
	the driver for my wifi card was no longer loading at boot time (but got card 
working doing 'modprobe ath-pci')
	
	possibly the interface to my PDA as modem was hit, but this could have been 
due to a coincidental expiration of my USBModem program on the PDA. i haven't 
spent any time on this one.
	
	
	
more details:

	during install of 'htplug', i saw the message, i think, 'removing udev' and 
messages about moving 3-4 kde programs.
	
	when i do hotplug manually i get:
	
kloro@debian:/etc/init.d$ ./hotplug start
Starting hotplug subsystem:
   pci
     intel-agp: already loaded
     ignoring pci display device 00:02.0
     ignoring pci display device 00:02.1
     uhci-hcd: already loaded
     uhci-hcd: already loaded
     uhci-hcd: already loaded
     ehci-hcd: already loaded
     shpchp: already loaded
     hw_random: can't be loaded
missing kernel or user mode driver hw_random
     generic: already loaded
     piix: already loaded
     i2c-i801: already loaded
     snd-intel8x0: already loaded
     snd-intel8x0m: already loaded
     8139too: already loaded
     8139cp: already loaded
     yenta_socket: already loaded
     yenta_socket: already loaded
     ath_pci: can't be loaded
missing kernel or user mode driver ath_pci
   pci      [success]
   usb
     usbhid: already loaded
     visor: already loaded
   usb      [success]
   isapnp
     parport_pc: loaded successfully
   isapnp   [success]
   ide
   ide      [success]
   input
     tsdev: already loaded
     mousedev: already loaded
     tsdev: already loaded
     mousedev: already loaded
     joydev: already loaded
     tsdev: already loaded
     mousedev: already loaded
   input    [success]
   scsi
   scsi     [success]
done.




my questions:

	why is stuff not loading at boot time?
	
	why does the system not create /dev/pilot when i connect my pda to the pc?
	
	is it possible to see the messages given by apt-get when hotplug was 
installed?

thanks in advance,

tom arnall
arcata