[Gllug] Modules vs Static in Kernel

[Richard Jones]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 03:47:17PM +0100, Dylan wrote:
> On Friday 18 July 2003 15:18, t.clarke wrote:
> > Personally, I prefer to have the drivers that are in constant use linked
> > statically into the Kernel.  OK, if I change the motherboard, I might have
> > to recompile - but this is unlikely to be a frequent event; more likely the
> > kernel will be upgraded before the motherboard !
> >
> > The other reason for preferring static drivers is that I got a bit fed up
> > with gratutious messages being splattered onto the console every time the
> > printer driver module was re-loaded (usually when printing something);
> > since the module was being automatically removed after so many minutes of
> > disuse !
> 
> As a matter or further interest - If a module for a NIC gets unloaded, how 
> does the machine know to reload it when a remote connection is made?

It doesn't. It would only get added when you bring up the interface
(ifconfig eth0 up), and _might_ get removed when you bring down the
interface (depending on whether you have a working kmod, which I
don't).

Drivers compiled into the kernel seem to be a bit happier for me on
Debian. I've never really got Debian to bring up PCMCIA interfaces in
particular on boot (except by explicit modprobe), and I think it's
something to do with PCMCIA devices always being modules.

Rich.

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