Chapter 9. Debian and the kernel

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9.4 What special provisions does Debian provide to deal with mod 

ules?

Debian's

modconf

package provides a shell script (

/usr/sbin/modconf

) which can be

used to customize the configuration of modules. This script presents a menu based interface,

prompting the user for particulars on the loadable device drivers in his system. The responses

are used to customize the file

/etc/modules.conf

(which lists aliases, and other arguments

that must be used in conjunction with various modules) through files in

/etc/modutils/

,

and

/etc/modules

(which lists the modules that must be loaded at boot time).

Like the (new) Configure.help files that are now available to support the construc 

tion of custom kernels, the modconf package comes with a series of help files (in

/usr/lib/modules_help/

) which provide detailed information on appropriate arguments

for each of the modules.

9.5 Can I safely de install an old kernel package, and if so, how?

Yes. The

kernel image NNN.prerm

script checks to see whether the kernel you are cur 

rently running is the same as the kernel you are trying to de install. Therefore you can remove

unwanted kernel image packages using this command:

dpkg   purge   force remove essential kernel image NNN

(replace  NNN  with your kernel version and revision number, of course)