[ILUG] etch and kernel modules

[Niall O Broin]

I've just set up a box with Debian etch and I'm curious about the  
modules which are loaded.
There is a lot of modules loaded which I just do not need e.g.  
pcspkr, psmouse (it's a headless box in a data centre) and raidX, for  
lots of values of X other than 1, which I do need. In total they use  
up nearly 1M of kernel memory. OK, not a big deal on a box with 2GB  
but nonetheless this is non swappable memory, and there's no point  
having it used for nothing.

So, what is causing these modules to be loaded? I'm presuming it is  
the initrd as /etc/modules is empty, so I guess they're not being  
loaded by the modutils script.

However, investigating the initrd proves more curious. The Debian  
supplied initrd.img file is a gzipped cpio, yet if you run the  
mkinitrd script it produces an initrd which is a cramfs filesystem.  
Why the disparity?

So, to summarise the questions are:

1) What determines what modules are loaded from the initrd? Clearly  
NOT need.

2) How do I influence the above in a reasonable way?

3) Why is the initrd supplied with a Debian kernel-image package a  
different file type to that produced by the mkinitrd script?

I have consulted the Debian Bible (Kraft's book) but it is curiously  
silent on the matter.


Niall