Selectively Disable modules on boot? (system hangs on mods)

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Ravenium · Post by **Ravenium** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:01 pm

Alright, I'll admit I did something stupid. I threw in the latest and greatest nvsound module without providing myself a backup kernel. We all know what happens when you get overconfident and make changes to the kernel/modules without having a failsafe (at least eventually), right?

Yep, the system tries to load nvsound and just sits here. Argh!

Ordinarily, I would just boot from the gentoo live cd, comment out the module, and reboot. But alas my CD drive has decided to stop reading any bootable burned cd (probably busted, of course). Oddly enough, it will read them once whatever OS I boot finishes booting.

Now, my question is, without running out and dropping cash on another cd drive (It's more the effort to find the nearest best buy, etc than the money), is there ANY way that I can disable a certain module or even all modules on load? Heck, I'd even accept being able to edit files on a partition.

I've tried mounting the partition in windows (guess what, no util reads ext3 r/w yet), booting from USB (for some reason the distro crashed due to it not liking some aspect of my hardware), floppy distros (most are too old), etc.

Anyone else got any ideas? It's frustrating to have this be such a simple problem, yet so difficult.

chunderbunny · Post by **chunderbunny** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:11 pm

I don't see how a floppy distro could be too old. As long as it has a terminal and ext2 drivers then you can mount your partition and comment out the module.

This is a reasonably up to date floppy based distro, give it a shot.

gmichels · Post by **gmichels** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:50 pm

I don't remember exactly, but I think booting in single mode doesn't load any modules.

To boot in single mode, while seeing grub's boot menu, press 'E' on the kernel you wish to boot. On the kernel line, add 'single' to the end of it. Now press enter then 'B' and your system will boot in single mode, allowing you to edit anything you need on your system.

hope that helps

Ravenium · Post by **Ravenium** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:53 pm

Thanks for the tips - I ended up using RUNT earlier this afternoon (booted from a floppy, loaded kernel from USB flash). I'll have to remember the single user mode bit for next time, though

I guess I might have been a bit mistaken when I described floppy distros as too old. I think it was more that the ones I tried to use didn't like the way my drive was partitioned and refused to mount it. I wasn't sure if it was an ext3 thing or what, but it just wouldn't mount.

Anyhow, back up and steaming along, thanks to both of you

Another reason I love these forums!