begin: Micah Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> quote
> On Tue, Nov 20, 2001 at 01:25:40PM -0800, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > > Well, I could do that of course, but getting modules.conf working
> > > would seem more elegant to me. This will work in the interim.
> > >
> > > I like knowing that most of my modules will be removed when they
> > > haven't been used for a while, though - that's why I prefer
> > > modules.conf.
> >
> > ahh.. ok, i see.
> >
> > are you on a debian box? i don't think changes are actually made the
> > modules.conf until you run update-modules (you're not supposed to write to
> > this file according to the man page).
> >
> > if you're on redhat or mandrake, i don't think they actually do this,
> > although things might have changed since the last time i looked at those
> > distros.
>
> I'm on RedHat. Don't see why one would be concerned about directly
> editing; it can't cause catastrophes that I'm aware of.
it's quite simple -
the debian packaging system is very smart about these things, and can
configure drivers keenly, as long as it can parse modules.conf with 100%
certainty. if you go poking around the file adding, deleting or changing
lines, dpkg can no longer manage your modules. or worse, make changes to the
file which is in an unknown state.
instead, debian provides a mechanism whereby users can make changes to
modules.conf, indirectly, and let dpkg gently fold your changes into the
real config file.
> And I can't find that notice on my manpage,
because it's a debianism. unless redhat puts debian manpages on the system.
:-)
> or in the kernel docs (admittedly outdated; the kernel docs still talk
> about kerneld, with a simple note at the top saying that kerneld is no
> longer supported).
modprobe, insmod rmmod and family have nothing to do with the kernel. they
are user space programs provided to the distibution for use with the linux
kernel. usually in a package called "modutils".
> > also, check /etc/syslogd.conf to make sure that modprobe errors aren't being
> > redirected to a file other than messages.
>
> Other modprobe errors go to messages.
ok. that strikes down my idea. :)
> > if the module is even remotely
> > trying to load, there HAS to be a record of it somewhere...
>
> That's what I thought; and that means it's *not* trying to load.
> Hence my problem. I can't figure why reading from a char-15,0 would
> result in a modprobe for char-major-15, but reading from char-13,0
> wouldn't result in anything.
your previous email got snipped -- it sounds like a bad modules.conf
configuration. can you modprobe the driver in successfully?
the driver might have a switch to enable debugging. that could help.
this is certainly a mysterious problem!
pete
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