Loading modules into compiled kernel

[Rick Stevens]

Bob McClure Jr wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 10:20:45AM +0300, vputhen at cc.hut.fi wrote:
> 
>>Hello,
>>
>>I am doing some work on 2.4.18 kernel. I got bcm5700 driver for a 3com Gigabit 
>>ethernet card which I bought 2 years ago. My problem is that when I compile a 
>>new kernel (with the same version but with other changes), I have to always 
>>insmod it after the new kernel has booted up. Is there someway to load this 
>>module in the kernel after compilation and before it is booted? I cannot find  
>>broadcom in the list of vendors while configuring (make xconfig or make 
>>menuconfig). 

The "tg3" driver works for Broadcom (albeit not the "best" driver).

> You should be able to make an entry in your /etc/modules.conf to the
> effect of
> 
>   alias eth0 bcm5700
> 
> and it should get loaded as soon as it's needed.

Ah, only if the driver is in the appropriate "/lib/modules/`uname -r`"
directory, Bobster.  And the "tg3" driver is the default for Broadcom.
The bcm5700 driver is much better, but tg3 is the default.

> Have you considered upgrading to FC2, 3, or 4?  One of those probably
> already has support for the bcm5700.

Again, it's the "tg3" driver.  Just why Fedora/RH continue to use this
"pretty sad" driver is beyond me (probably some copyright BS), the "tg3"
driver continues to be the default.

Why is tg3 sad?  It has major issues autonegotiating with some switches
(Extreme and Cisco to name two), it's unreliable at speeds >10Mb and you
get lots of buffer overruns.  The bcm5700 driver is much better, but
you do have to build it yourself.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-             To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.               -
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