--- Raphael Mankin raph@panache.demon.co.uk wrote:

On 20-May-01 David Freeman wrote:

...

--- Raphael Mankin raph@panache.demon.co.uk wrote:

...

In general, your primary net card should be compiled in and not a module. You can get away with it if you add to your conf.modules (or modules.conf) a line like alias eth0 3c509 (or whatever the module is called) The alternative is to ensure that an explciit modprobe is done for the card before you try to configure the network. Dig around in /etc/rc* to find out where to put it.

Why should it be compiled in? surely this is a bad idea as every

time

...

you change card you need to recompile the whole kernel.

[snip]

In general, I agree with you, and that is fine for those who are hapy with doing all the tinkering that is necessary in places like modules.conf. Howver, newbies are likely to be bitten by this, and in the particular case of network cards, which need to have their modules loaded quite early in the startup sequence, it is easier to have them compiled in.

Why? it means that it isn't as versitile and that you can only support a small number of cards compiled in. Its better to have one of the init scripts go and load the required modules, its not even difficult to write tool which will aid choosing the correct modules. That way you can just distribute modules as extras etc... To me it just makes sense.

I do exactly the same as you do in my Slackware system, and for the same reasons: I am forever swapping network cards around. However for simple usage stick to simple configurations; you are less likely to be bitten by something unexpected.

Which requires a complex kernel recompile when you want to upgrade from 10Mbps to 100Mbps?

Thanks

D

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