Map of boot procedure

[Tom Diehl]

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Doug Crompton wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Dec 2005, Tom Diehl wrote:
>
>>
>> For at least FC3 forward (2.6 kernels??) the file is /etc/modprobe.conf. IIRC
>> modules.conf was for the 2.2/2.4 kernels.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Tom
>
> Yes that is correct but this is a system generated file and the preferred
> place (in SUSE) to make  changes is  /etc/modprobe.conf.local
> There is also a /etc/modprobe.d directory that is referenced in
> modprobe.conf

Fedora/Red Hat does not have /etc/modprobe.conf.local or /etc/modprobe.d.
That is most likely a SUSE modification from the way the kernel devel
people set thing up. None the less it is easy enough to understand.
Typically when you have a directory such as /etc/modprobe.d. that is
where packages put their specific config information. As you already
figured out the .local thing is for user modifications.

> I went through a few interations of trying to make my sound and HDTV
> work with these files and had no luck. That is when I put the load in
> /etc/sysconfig/kernel.  Now that I have some more input I may go back to
> trying this again.
>
> My understanding though of the modprobe files was that they modified
> system generated loads - e.g. speciied aliases and install scripts to
> modify the install of a module but only if it were called from somewhere
> else. How does one force a load in modprobe.conf?

Typically modprobe gets consulted when modules are loaded/unloaded. For the
most part this happens at boot time. For things like pcmcia cards for instance
modprobe gets consulted when the card in inserted and the modules are loaded.

I have something like the following that I added to get my wifi card working
automagically at boot time:
install ath0 /sbin/modprobe ath_pci; /usr/local/bin/wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode sta

This sets up the card when I insert it so that I do not have to do it by hand.

If you want to try loading different parameters without rebooting you need
to be able to unload the module, make changes in modprobe.conf* and then load
the module again. Sometimes the only to make changes is to reboot. If the
machine thinks that the module is in use it will not let you rm it.

Hope this helps,

Tom