network drivers and new install

mh983 · n00b Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 13

originally posted in wrong place...

Looks like this has been brought up several times in the forums, but my question is a bit different, more of a "how come" instead of a "how".

I boot up the Gentoo minimal livecd, and lsmod shows 8139cp and 8139too and networking works just fine.

Then I go through the install. I did this twice actually. First time I used genkernel, second time I just copied the kernel and modules off the livecd (interesting install alternative if there's no issues with it).

Both times, after the install, my 8139 drivers are not loaded.

Now, I know I can just add them to modules.autoload and then networking works fine.

But my question is, why, if I used genkernel or the kernel right off the livecd, do I have to add the modules to autoload, but the livecd does not need that and loads the drivers just fine?

This must be either hotplug or coldplug right? The only thing I could think of is maybe my version of hot/coldplug is different than the one the livecd was made from and it's detecting differently. I did "emerge coldplug" and "rc-update add coldplug boot".

Does the livecd run anything else that my installed system wouldn't?

Any ideas? Again, everything is fine and works, I'm just curious why now. Thanks!

mike

bkunlimited · l33t Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 672

afaik the livecd uses an initrd

robinh00d · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 3:44 pm Post subject:

The LiveCD kernel could have module autoloading turned on...maybe try that.

Ast0r · Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 5:03 pm Post subject:

The LiveCD goes through a hardware detection process (hotplug or coldplug or whatever) in which it attempts to figure out which modules work for your hardware. It is more efficient to specify the modules yourself so that the kernel doesn't waste time (only a second or two on a fast system, but far longer on a slow system) trying to figure out which modules to load.

Using a custom kernel allows you save space and not have extra modules that are not needed. Granted, for most people, another couple of MB of kernel modules isn't that big of a deal, and an extra 2 seconds of boot time isn't either, but if you don't have to have those then why?