Re: Auto kernel module loading

"Alastair G. Hogge" wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> Just the other day I was configuring/striping my kernel to the barest I could
> manage. I was doing this to hopefully reduce kernel build time.
> 
> Now after adding 60 lines to loader.conf to load the modules I need, I began
> thinking is there a way for FreeBSD to load the modules automaticly at boot
> time itself?

No.

> If not, would be hard to implement such a feature? How would someone go about
> doing such a thing? As I would be happy to give it a go....but don't know
> where to start.

It would not be too hard.  You could implement seperate sections
in the modules for the probe routines, and then load the section
seperately, only loading the module itself if it probed true.  Most
likely, you would want to reuse the same area of memory for each of
the seperate probe routines, to avoid fragging kernel memory (any
more than it already frags itself).

If you felt that were too much work, you could implement a seperate
data section with PCI ID and other information.  You could probably
fit each and every one into a single 4K page in each individual
driver.  This would probably cover most of the drivers that you
would ever have to worry about seeing be actively needed.


> Does the documentation project have some info to help? I'm cvsup-ing them
> right now as I once recall seeing an article titled something like
> "Programmers guide to FreeBSD"

www.freebsd.org, under documentation.  It has a link to the
programmers guide, online.

-- Terry