Kernel modules (2.4) after copying a linux partition into a different machine

The kernel doesn’t automagically find any devices. They must all be specified either on the command line, or as what typically happens by loading specific modules. They could be compiled into the kernel. But that should not be the case. You should be using standard “stock” kernels. Now how does the kernel know what to load? It looks at the file:

/etc/modules

This file lists modules which are loaded at boot time.

hendry@bilbo:~$ cat /etc/modules

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.

#

# This file should contain the names of kernel modules that are

# to be loaded at boot time, one per line.  Comments begin with

# a #, and everything on the line after them are ignored.

via-rhine

hid

busmouse

nvram

agpgart

emu10k1

ext3

mousedev

keybdev

via82cxxx_audio

cpuid

ide-scsi

sr_mod

sg

loop

apm

8139too

uhci

These get setup by base-config when installing Debian(possibly? installer?). Anyway, if you copying a Debian partition onto another machine, then this probably needs checking as the other machine will undoubtedly have different hardware. Now:

/etc/modules.conf

Is a definition for what modules that get loaded by an alias trigger or something. I am not sure about this myself, so I need to update this. This file is pretty important. You should manage this file with update-modules and some other tools. Looking here solved a problem for a friend of mine(Jamie), who had a problem with his network cards:

I edited /etc/modules.conf from


alias eth0 8139too

alias eth1 8139too

alias eth2 8139too


to


alias eth0 eepro100

alias eth1 eepro100

RH specific (as this file does not exist on my system):

(I got the "eepro100" from the eth driver info from /etc/sysconfig/hwconf)

Jamie Kitson (who solved this particular problem by himself. I didn’t. He did. He asked for me to make that clear) adds:

I think you should mention that the problem only arose because I had told

kudzu to ignore the changes, and it did detect the h/w changes, and would

have updated modules.conf for me if I had let it.