For the life of me, I can't seem to figure out how to trim down the modules that load at boot time on my debian sarge machine...

/sbin/lsmod produces:

Module Size Used by Not tainted
pcmcia_core 35360 0
rtc 6120 0 (autoclean)
via82cxxx_audio 17756 0 (unused)
ac97_codec 11444 0 [via82cxxx_audio]
uart401 6244 0 [via82cxxx_audio]
sound 50568 0 [via82cxxx_audio uart401]
soundcore 3268 4 [via82cxxx_audio sound]
via-rhine 11056 1
mii 1984 0 [via-rhine]
crc32 2848 0 [via-rhine]
usb-uhci 19696 0 (unused)
usbcore 52908 0 [usb-uhci]
parport_pc 19400 1 (autoclean)
lp 5952 0 (autoclean)
parport 21800 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
ide-cd 27968 0
cdrom 25088 0 [ide-cd]
ide-disk 12512 5 (autoclean)
ext3 53220 3 (autoclean)
jbd 34852 3 (autoclean) [ext3]
ide-detect 288 0 (autoclean) (unused)
via82cxxx 9448 1 (autoclean)
ide-core 94332 5 (autoclean) [ide-cd ide-disk ide-detect via82cxxx]
unix 13260 8 (autoclean)

and I don't need any via82cxxx_audio, usb or ide-cd support. I'd love to comment out whatever conf files or wherever this control could be had.

Any suggestions as to how to trim out the fat for my server box here?

Thanks!

Well, kernel modules hardly make it any fatter, but you just need to remove them from /etc/modules.

recompile your kernel and you can eliminate a lot more than just the modules your seeing probably!
Jersey RULZ!

If you don't like the universal configuration tool (vi) you might use modconf, which lets you select all modules.

Thanks for the advice so far, but I'm still having some troubles...
my /etc/modules contains only "ide-cd" and "ide-detect"... this isn't where the problem is coming from.

I went into /etc/default and nano'd pcmcia so it doesn't start... that's a help. The 'fat' is still there, though...

I'm in the process of building a nice-n-trim kernel for this box now, but that's introduced its own set of problems... I used 'aptitude' to pull down 2.4.23 kernel sources and kernel-package. 'make menuconfig' 'd the deal to get a nice trim kernel, used make-kpgk buildpackage and installed it, but lilo.conf is complaining about /proc/partitions not matching /dev directory structure...

This is for another thread, I know, but just so you folks don't think I'm sitting with my thumbs up my you-know-how waiting for an easy answer!

I'm sure it will all come out fine in the end, just a little frustratin'!