Why won't my modules load?
 

I compiled some modules on Debian, so that I can learn which modules are necessary to get a soundcard's midi ports working on a Knoppix liveCD. Therefore recompiling the kernel is not an option since the kernel can't be updated on a liveCD.

After downloading the source tree from kernel.org, I do "make menuconfig", "make dep", "make modules", and "make modules_install" and also "update-modules".

After rebooting, the modules under /lib/modules/2.4.26 are not loaded, so I must be missing a step? What do I do to tell Debian to load the modules? How does it know which directory under /lib/modules to load from?

"How does it know which directory under /lib/modules to load from?"

It loads modules from the directory with the same name as the kernel. You can find out what your kernel name is with:
uname -r

"After rebooting, the modules under /lib/modules/2.4.26 are not loaded, so I must be missing a step? What do I do to tell Debian to load the modules? "

There is a file with modprobe commands to load all needed loadable modules at boot. I don't know what this file is called in Debian. Possible names are /etc/modprobe.conf and /etc/modules.conf.

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Steve Stites

Don't forget to run "depmod -a".