On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 at 22.03.09 -0600, Kevin Lombardo wrote: > 1. Is there a way to tell which device drivers have been compiled in > to a pre-built kernel? not that i know of, in general. you can check a few not terribly interesting things by reading /proc/devices and /proc/filesystems. > 2. I see a file called /etc/modules, and there are 4 entries in it: > > ide-cd > ide-disk > ide-generic > psmouse > > Are these simply modular drivers? And are they in this file because > the kernel *always* loads them, rather than relying on any kind of > autodetect? i believe they'll be loaded unconditionally at boot if the modules exist. it's used for stuff that can't be probed like certain scsi cards. > 3. How does the kernel know which other drivers to load? Is it just > autodetect or is there a configuration file? the kernel passes device info to folks like hotplug and udev. > 4. If I have a modular driver for an ide disk, and then try booting a > kernel with an ide driver compiled with it, which driver will be used, > the compiled in or the modular? the compiled in one will be used. of course, if your ide driver is a module and your root filesystem is on an ide disk, neither will be used..... -- Sidney CAMMERESI http://www.cheesecake.org/sac/