[mythtv-users] Loading device at boot time

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/03/2006 10:06 AM, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
> Greg Farrell wrote:
>   
>> On Fri, 2006-03-03 at 08:51 -0600, Kevin Kuphal wrote:
>>     
>>> I recently added a QAM HDTV tuner to my slave backend.  When it boots, 
>>> it seems to load the saa7134 V4L driver fine, but I need to load the 
>>> saa7134-dvb driver.  I can do this with a modprobe but I wanted to do it 
>>> with the modules.conf file.
>>>       
>> You could add it to /etc/modules
>>
>> That's a list of modules to load at boot time. As I understand it,
>> aliasing a module to a char device means that when something tries to
>> access that char device the kernel knows to load that particular module.
>>
>> So you'd need to know what char device the saa7134-dvb uses (if any).
>> Modprobe it and see what it creates? 
>>
>> I'd just stick it in /etc/modules personally though.
>>     
> Hmm, my FC4 system has neither a file or directory named modules.  I do 
> have the modprobe.conf file I mentioned but I'm unsure of which 
> char-major device is used.  I tried aliasing it to video0 which is alias 
> char-major-81 saa7134-dvb but it still only loaded the saa7134 driver.  
> I'd also rather not put in a wacky modprobe.conf line to modprobe the 
> saa7134-dvb driver after loading the saa7134.  I'm sure there is a 
> *proper* way to do this but I can't find it :)
>   

Just a couple of quick points to clear up some pet-peeves of mine.  
Readers who know this can skip a) and b). ;)

a) /etc/modules, /etc/modules.d, and their ilk are not "standard"--they 
are distribution specific configuration meant to be used (at least on 
Linux 2.6 systems) *only* when udev/hotplug (and, if still in use by 
your distro, coldplug) are unable to (and cannot be configured to) 
automatically identify a device.

b) /etc/modules.conf and /etc/modprobe.conf do *not* load modules--they 
specify _configuration_ information for modprobe, the program that loads 
modules.  You must still cause modprobe to be called to load the desired 
module.

So, which kernel version do you have?  It looks like 2.6.10 added code 
to request the saa7134-dvb if you have a card that requires it.  Don't 
know if it works, though.  If not, there are many other things you can 
do to get around a "broken" module (the saa7134 core should request the 
-dvb module for you, if required).  Post again if you're using 2.6.10 or 
higher...  :)

Mike