You can also use the -a option to see the author of the module, or -n to see the object file representing
the module. The author information often has the e-mail address of the driver??™s creator,
so you can contact the author if you have problems or questions about it.
Loading Modules
You can load any module that has been compiled and installed (to the /lib/modules directory)
into your running kernel using the modprobe command. A common reason for loading a module
is to use a feature temporarily (such as loading a module to support a special file system on a
floppy you want to access). Another reason is to identify a module that will be used by a particular
piece of hardware that could not be autodetected.
NOTE
161
Learning Basic Administration 4
Here is an example of the modprobe command being used to load the parport module, which provides
the core functions to share parallel ports with multiple devices:
# modprobe parport
After parport is loaded, you can load the parport_pc module to define the PC-style ports available
through the interface. The parport_pc module lets you optionally define the addresses and IRQ
numbers associated with each device sharing the parallel port. For example:
# modprobe parport_pc io=0x3bc irq=auto
In this example, a device is identified as having an address of 0x3bc, and the IRQ for the device is
autodetected.
Pages:
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376