I understand that you can install a single kernel module without having to recompile the kernel.

The fact is that I have manually compiled and installed kernel 2.6.20.1 on Slackware and I have forgotten to select a few modules which I need... I'm particulary interested in usb_storage to be able to download some photos off my digital camera.

Can I install a module without recompiling and reinstalling the whole kernel? Can somebody point me to a good tutorial/howto?

I tried googleing, searching the tutorials both on lq and on linux.org, and I looked at the documentation in the kernel source (which doesn't have very suggestive file names, at least for me), but I couldn't find a particular guide for this.

I considered it to be quite a newbie question, as I am quite new to kernel modules. If it is not, then please move it...

Thanks for reading. Any info/suggestion you have is welcomed.

Hi, if it is to be loaded as a module you can simply run

make menuconfig (or however you want to select the module)
and then
make modules_install

It will not recompile the whole thing,will take alot less time this way and with quite a few steps less.

Hope it helps some.

thanks, this should save quite a bit of time.

And I don't have to copy systemmap and config to /boot? I'll have to try it...
And will I have to reinstall the Nvidia driver afterwards?

No copying needed and no you should not have to reinstall Nvidia. I believe you should only have to do that when a new kernel is installed, as you are only installing a driver you should be fine.

ok, thanks! that will save me countless hours of having to reinstall the whole kernel for a module I forgot...