Compiling modules individually (was Re: [ILUG] boot problem)

[Fergal Daly]

Dermot,
	there is a suggestion near the bottom, but first a
digression.

Am I the only one who objects to recompiling to whole kernel just for
one module? What is the point of having modules if you can't add them
modularly! (OK so there's all the dynamic loading and memory saving...)

Lots of times I've seen people on the list told to download a mod and
recompile the kernel when it seems to be an enormous waste of
time. This bugs me because it's very off-putting for newbies and just
an all round pain in the bum to do.

Can any of the kernel experts out there tell me if there's
anything wrong with just getting the latest module's source and doing
this

gcc -I /usr/src/linux/include -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -O6 -c eepro100.c

cp eepro100.o /lib/modules/kernel-version/net

rmmod eepro.o

modprobe eepro.o

(back up your original first obviously) not even a reboot required. The
only stumbling blocks I've ever hit were

- having to add more -I options to gcc to find some more include files
(eg scsi stuff). 

- if the module is loaded from the initrd.img, then you'll have to
crack that open and replace it in there too (more scsi stuff)

Am I asking for trouble?

Finally, my suggested solution is: keep the kernel you started with
(that way you should get rid of your hda3 problems) and compile a module
for you card (as above). As for removing sound support, maybe just
remove the sound module or commenting out the sound line in
/etc/conf.modules would do the trick. Why are you removing sound
support anyway?

Fergal


On Wed, 14 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> I have recompiled the kernel to remove sound support and enable support
> for my new ethernet card (Trust PCI). The trouble is that on rebooting
> via command line 'halt', or 'reboot', the new kernel is reloaded and
> insists on saying: "/dev/hda3 not cleanly umounted, check forced" for
> all the hda partitions (no errors are found). Nothing else has been done
> recently other than the kernel recompile. Any ideas of what I've
> overlooked? This has never happened before my kernel recompile.
> 
> Other errors include:/lib/modules/2.2.12.20/misc/essolo.o    unresolved
> symbols.
> "    "      "              /es1370.o
> these are old modules from when i tried to get my sound card working, is
> it ok to just delete them?
> 
> The Trust PCI ethernet card - is it OK to identify this card as a PCI
> NE2000" - or does it have a different chipset? - the box gives no clues.