Adding forgotten kernel module without complete recompile

[Klaus-Peter Schrage]

Bruce Marshall wrote:

>On Sunday 13 July 2003 14:09 pm, Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:
>  
>
>>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
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Not in my not-so-expert opinion.   The purpose of the alias statements 
>are to tell the kernel that instead of looking for module xyz that it 
>would normally look for, instead look for module  qrs.  Just an alias 
>for a module that was already being looked for.  But if the kernel 
>didn't know to look for xyz...  the statement would have no effect.
>
>In your first alias above...  (snd-card-0), the kernel may get a request 
>to call the sound card module (snd-card-0) which really is just a 
>pseudo-name for any of a dozen or more modules that handle various sound 
>cards, and the alias above is going to get the right card module for 
>YOUR system called.  My alias for the same snd-card-0 looks like:
>
>alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
>
>
>(We have different sound cards)
>  
>
Yes, Bruce and Lonni, thanks, you are right, and I have learned 
something which I never was really clear about.
But, back to my initial point (I really don't want to bug), you can add 
a single kernel module after the kernel build. If I just would have 
taken a look at the good old kernel-howto before all this ...
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Kernel-HOWTO.html#AEN272
Klaus