Clearly the kernel is loading a module for a feature of your card that you 
don't even know exists (: Chances are this causes negligable (if any) 
impact on your runnign system, but you can always unload the module 
(the command is 'rmmod') and you can prevent that module (or any others) 
from loading in the first place if you like by creating a file called 
"blockmodules.conf" (or anything .conf) in /etc/modprobe.d/ and saying

 	blacklist module_name>

in it.


I still remember the days of downloading the latest kernel (3+ hour 
download over that 56K modem, and we were so happy about how fast that 
was!), untarring it and then going "make config", and being sooo happy 
when we could finally go "make menuconfig" or even "make xconfig" and 
going though ALL the options to see if support for anything new showed up. 
Then "make vmlinuz" and go to sleep, because that's how long that was 
going to take!

To be honest, I haven't felt the need to build my own kernel in probably 
over a decade. Literally, over 10 years. The closest thing to that I've 
done was force my new laptop to use a 4.4 kernel rather than a 3.19 
kernel, because the wireless adapter is only supported in 4.2+ kernels. 
But, again, that was readily available - wget && dpkg the new kernel, 
reboot, and It Just Works.

The days when I was OK using an OS where I have to build everything (and I 
mean /everything/) myself are over. I don't have the time to build my own 
kernel, build my own GCC, build my own GIMP, build the nVidia module, 
building XORG's version of X Windows, build whatever window manager you 
like, build Firefox, etc, etc. Nowadays it's install Ubuntu (or mint or 
whatever) and beat it up a little bit so it works the way I want. I don't 
care if some of the (I just checked) 131 modules it loads are not actually 
used. As long as everything works and is responsive, it's all good.



On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote:

> Good suggestion doing 'lsmod.' One of the goofy modules I didn't understand 
> and deleted from the new configuration file was "matrox_w1" -- something 
> about my MatroxG400 video card having "Dallas 1 wire master control." Huh?? 
> Well there it was, in lsmod, loaded for what I still don't know.
>
> But your suggestion will help a lot. The last time I recompiled a kernel was 
> SuSE 9.2, still a 2.6 kernel (??). And it had a nasty bug in the serial port 
> driver that, when setserial was used, would disable the FIFO and not 
> re-enable it as expected. By the time I patched and "cleaned up" that kernel 
> I lost USB. So I can already see I'm headed in the same direction.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Clug wrote:
>> The drivers you are talking about probably don't belong in every kernel - 
>> and kernels including them date back to about the same timeframe.
>> 
>> The Linux kernel has supported modules since the late '90s, and it's been 
>> practially seemelss for over a decade. Kernels that come with distribtions 
>> contain these drivers AS MODULES. They are NOT loaded into the kernel 
>> unless they are needed. Very few drivers are actally built into the kernel 
>> nowadays.
>> 
>> Type 'lsmod' in a terminal window, and see the long, ong list of modules 
>> that are loaded automatically. I just did that on one of my machines, and 
>> there are about 80. 80! None of them are built into the kenrel. They are 
>> loaded as needed.
>> 
>> Those precompiled modules are, again, separate. They may take up diskspace, 
>> but we're talking about a few hundred megabytes. That's not the kind of 
>> diskspace a modern system is even going to notice. It is absolutely not 
>> impacting memory or performance, either.
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote:
>> 
>>> Thanks for your reply.
>>> 
>>> Perhaps you are right. I really don't have one good answer, but am 
>>> confused and interested in learning.
>>> 
>>> Many of the driver modules for things like SCSI and Sound cards I remember 
>>> go way back to ISA bus cards. I doubt you could find many of these cards 
>>> if you tried. Hundreds of them that don't seem to belong in the same 
>>> kernel source as high performance systems. In my downloaded pre-compiled 
>>> kernel the ancient driver modules are included and litter up both the 
>>> configuration file and library directory. An ancient hardware platform 
>>> deserves the ancient kernel.
>>> 
>>> I realize the PC desktop platform is obsolete to many users. And all the 
>>> laptop features, etc., etc., are new to me. But I'm surprised by all the 
>>> support for embedded, GPIO, and many things I've barely heard of. One of 
>>> the pre-compiled driver modules (GPS) for serial port even used the 
>>> carrier detect as a pulse clock.
>>> 
>>> I guess what I'm trying to do is a standard master/slave control system 
>>> over a standard RS232 link, exploiting standard ATX power supplies on both 
>>> ends.
>>> 
>>> I have an 84 year old farmer friend who likes Ubuntu on his laptops, mails 
>>> pictures of his very old car rebuilding projects. He likes old cars 
>>> because they're fixable. I would like to think I can still do things with 
>>> a PC.
>>> 
>>> Clug wrote:
>>>> Aren't al kernels nowadays pretty much 100% module-based? Which means you 
>>>> can't really get them to be simpler, as such?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016, Rick Engebretson wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> I'm trying to compile a linux kernel that is simpler than the 
>>>>> distribution version (using old opensuse 12.2 on an intel p4 mobo). I'm 
>>>>> able to use the tools and documentation, and have compiled and installed 
>>>>> some variant of the default opensuse download. However, I didn't get it 
>>>>> to run the simple standard PC. It seems the grub2 bootloader is another 
>>>>> learning process.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I did this years ago on simpler pentium machines with lilo bootloader. 
>>>>> But going through all the new configuration options and actual 
>>>>> compilation literally takes days. From what I can understand, the 
>>>>> "vanilla" linux kernel now supports technology I didn't know existed.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm not sure I know how to get back to basic computing anymore. Just 
>>>>> wondering if others have tried and succeeded slimming the kernel down, 
>>>>> and any tips??
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
>> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
>> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>> 
>
> _______________________________________________
> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list
>