On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 08:31:35PM +1100, Leslie Katz wrote:
> I'm trying to make an ancient laptop run with a mini-distribution, DSL.
>
> As the laptop has only 64MB of RAM, I'm trying to make sure DSL doesn't
> include any unnecessary services or modules when it boots up.
>
> For instance, the laptop has two PCMCIA slots, so on bootup, DSL starts
> cardmgr. However, I have no cards installed, so I configured a file
> which runs on bootup shortly after cardmgr is started immediately to
> stop cardmgr.
>
> Having done what I think I can with services, I've now turned to
> modules. For instance, on bootup, DSL loads the ieee1394 module.
Do you mean ieee1394 appears in 'lsmod' output even though you
don't have one? I'd call that a bug. Or perhaps the laptop
has ieee1394 support on the m'board, but no physical port?
> However, the laptop has no Firewire port, so I configured the same file
what is this file and what do you put in it? modprobe -r .. ?
> immediately to unload the module.
>
> However, I'm a bit worried about trying to do the same thing with other
> modules. Since the laptop has no USB ports, I thought I could get rid of
> the usbcore and hid modules in the same way I got rid of the ieee1394
> module, but trying that hung the laptop.
In the most general case, unloading modules is an unsafe operation.
A bit of googling reveals that you can put something like
install evilmodule /bin/true
in /etc/modprobe.conf
> Can anyone point me to some source of information which would help me
> decide which, if any, other modules I could safely dispense with? I've
> tried via googling, but had no success.
If ram is your only concern, I don't think stopping a few modules
from loading is going to help much. You're better off just preventing
various servers/daemons from running.
Matt
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