Adding forgotten kernel module without complete recompile

[Klaus-Peter Schrage]

Bruce Marshall wrote:

>Supposing there is a device I just invented called a Belchfire 90 
>mob-ulator... and I write a module for it.  How could the kernel 
>possibly use my module?  It wouldn't know when to call it...  Same thing 
>goes for a new USB device that hasn't been defined to the USB modules.
>
>If the ALSA modules can be compiled and supplied out of the blue...  then 
>either they don't rely on the kernel or the kernel has been told about 
>them. 
>
Telling the kernel about foreign modules, isn't that the job of the 
"alias" lines in modules.conf?
There I have:
...
alias snd-card-0 snd-ice1712
...
alias char-major-195 nvidia
among many others, the right-hand side always pointing to a file in
/lib/modules/2.4.21/kernel/
Klaus