Fair enough. A monolithic kernel means you don't have to mess about with making sure the ethernet module is loaded before the ethernet-dependant service starts.
However modules are necessary for several reasons. You can remove and reload a module - I have to do this on my laptop sound card occasionally. You can add a module (say a USB device) that you don't have in the kernel already Some stuff can't be compiled into the kernel - nvidia/madwifi/tcx100/vmware all require modules to do their thing. Obviously your kernel is compiled to support modules already, because of the ATI module, so using it will not really affect your machine at all. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Himmelmann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 29 April 2005 7:54 p.m. To: [email protected] Subject: Kernel-Modules So far I have compiled everything I needed under make menuconfig as inbuilt instead of module. That works fine but I have always wondered what the difference between the two options is. I have learned that modules have to be loaded (with modprobe) and that certain things such as support for the root file system must not be compiled as module. Is that correct? Why and when should I compile something as a module? I have tried to compile one option as module and I had to load it later using modprobe. How can I autoload modules? Happy Hacking, Robert Himmelmann Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely. -- Lao Tsu "Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of G�del's Theorem ..." -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
