Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4570 mails)

["Paul W. Abrahams" <abrahams@xxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 06 November 2005 9:31 pm, Sid Boyce wrote:
> Paul W. Abrahams wrote:
> > I'm running SuSE 10.0 and have run into a surprising problem: I can't load 
the 
> > modules listed in modprobe.conf using modprobe.  If I just type 
"modprobe", I 
> > get:
> > 
> > suillus:~ # modprobe
> > Usage: modprobe [-v] [-V] [-C config-file] [-n] [-i] [-q] [-o <modname>] 
> > <modname> [parameters...]
> > modprobe -r [-n] [-i] [-v] <modulename> ...
> > modprobe -l -t <dirname> [ -a <modulename> ...]
> > 
> > This usage differs in a critical respect from the usage given in the 
manpage: 
> > it does not allow modprobe to be called with no arguments (the first line 
> > requires <modname>).  The manpage says that calling modprobe with no 
> > arguments loads the modules in /etc/modprobe.conf.  
> > 
> > This leads to two questions:
> > 
> > (1) Is there a version of modprobe around that corresponds to the manpage 
and 
> > still is up to date?
> > 
> > (2) If not, how can I get the existing modprobe to 
load /etc/modprobe.conf?
> > 
> > Paul
> > 
> > 
> 
> The manpage for modprobe says no such thing and it has always needed a 
> module to be specified. 

The syntax given on the manpage is:

modprobe [ -v ] [ -V ] [ -C config-file ] [ -n ] [ -i ] [ -q ] [ -o 
modulename ] [ module_name ]  [ module parameters ... ]

which seems to indicate that the module name is optional.  (Isn't that what 
the square brackets around module_name mean?)

> If there is a problem, it's usually associated  
> with support of one piece of hardware, e.g sound. There are scripts in 
> /etc/init.d that allow stopping, starting or restarting, 
> "/etc/init.d/alsasound <stop/start/restart>" or "rcalsasound 
> <stop/start/restart>" does the same thing as /sbin/rcalsasound which is 
> a symlink to /etc/init.d/alsasound. The modules are unloaded on stop, 
> unloaded and reloaded on restart or if they are not loaded, start loads 
> them.

The problem I'm having is that two groups of modules aren't getting loaded: 
the sound modules and ndiswrapper.  The instructions for ndiswrapper indicate 
that it should be sufficient to put an entry into modprobe.conf in order to 
get it started; what you seem to be saying is that despite those 
instructions, I need to put an explicit call to modprobe into the startup 
scripts.   Do I interpret you correctly?

Thanks --

Paul