kernel upgrade and module names incompatibility and /etc/modules.conf
 

Recently I came across a problem. Module name incompatibility..
I use Realtek 8139 ethernet card.
I upgraded my kernel from 2.2.16 to 2.4.14.
For a perticular hardware, the module names in these two kernels are different. How do we resolve those if you want to use both the kernels?

Here is the outline: The /etc/modules.conf uses rtl8139.o for
2.2.16, the module for the card. And in 2.4.14, the module for
the card is : 8139too.o

section of /etc/modules.conf..
# options rtl8139
alias eth0 rtl8139 -> 1. enabled only for 2.2.16
alias eth0 8139too -> 2. enabled only for 2.4.14

Whenever I use the old kernel, I manually comment out the second line. And when I want use the new kernel, I comment out the first line. This is very annoying and I hate to do it everytime. Another downside is that you should kknw what kernel you are booting into beforehand and is not always possible.

Is there a way to bind a module name to a specific kernel?

Thanks.
Ravi

You could just try leaving them both uncommented and ignore the boot message about "unable to load module **". In /lib/modules there should be a directory for each kernel version containing the needed modules for that version so if you boot the 2.2.x kernel it will look to /lib/modules/2.2.x and load rtl8139 and then complain about not finding 8139too but this should have no effect on how the system performs.

Can't you rename the rtl8319too, removing the too, change the etc/modules.conf so there's only 1 entry. As theyre in separate directories, it should work fine.
Jim