/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound folder is missing after compiling kernel
 

Recently I came across a problem related to sound modules after compiling the 2.4.33 kernel sources. The intention is to set up my system to bootsplash, and to achieve this a compilation kernel is required.
Below is the lsmod command output I got before the kernel compilation. Please, notice that I highlighted the lines related to the sound modules

Module Size Used by Not tainted
bsd_comp 4120 0 (autoclean)
ipt_LOG 3384 3 (autoclean)
iptable_filter 1644 1 (autoclean)
ip_tables 12096 2 [ipt_LOG iptable_filter]
ppp_synctty 5064 0 (unused)
ppp_async 6656 1
ppp_generic 19460 3 [bsd_comp ppp_synctty ppp_async]
slhc 4496 0 [ppp_generic]
snd-seq-oss 23104 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 3208 0 [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 33552 2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-seq-device 3716 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq]
snd-pcm-oss 28928 0 (unused)
snd-mixer-oss 11928 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
parport_pc 14692 1 (autoclean)
lp 6372 0 (autoclean)
parport 22472 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
keybdev 1828 0 (unused)
mousedev 4244 1
hid 21380 0 (unused)
printer 7520 0
usbmouse 1912 0 (unused)
input 3104 0 [keybdev mousedev hid usbmouse]
uhci 23804 0 (unused)
ehci-hcd 17644 0 (unused)
usbcore 56812 1 [hid printer usbmouse uhci ehci-hcd]
snd-intel8x0 19188 0
snd-ac97-codec 68160 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-pcm 52804 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec]
snd-timer 13168 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm]
snd 34304 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer]
soundcore 3300 6 [snd]
snd-page-alloc 4980 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-seq-device snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm snd-timer snd]
8139too 13672 1
mii 2304 0 [8139too]
crc32 2880 0 [8139too]
pcmcia_core 39492 0
ntfs 50848 1 (autoclean)
ide-scsi 9392 0
agpgart 45092 0 (unused)

Here is the system location of each module highlighted above

/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/seq/oss/snd-seq-oss.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/seq/snd-seq-midi-event.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/seq/snd-seq.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/seq/snd-seq-device.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/oss/snd-pcm-oss.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/oss/snd-mixer-oss.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/pci/ac97/snd-ac97-codec.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/snd-pcm.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/snd-timer.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/drivers/sound/soundcore.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound/acore/snd-page-alloc.o.gz

After applying the patch and following the traditional steps (make dep; make clean; make bzImage; make modules; make modules_install, cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz, cp System.map /boot and the required lilo.conf changes), the compilation process ran normally without any errors. After entering in KDE, an error message informs that /dev/dsp is a device not found and no sound comes up as before, but surprisingly the device is in its expected location.
Alsamixer doesn't work. It is reported an error message coming from alsa_ctl_open function. Going deeper in my investigation, the lsmod | grep snd command output brings me no snd* sound module at all!!!
Alsaconf doesn't work as well. It can't detect any sound card in my system!!! My last step trying to find an answer for this failure was the ls -l /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel command output. It gave me the most surprising result. See bellow

total 5
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 2007-04-14 00:24 arch/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 600 2007-04-14 00:24 crypto/
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 592 2007-04-14 00:24 drivers/
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 680 2007-04-14 00:24 fs/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 136 2007-04-14 00:24 lib/
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 552 2007-04-14 00:24 net/

The expected result is:
total 6
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 72 2006-09-01 04:04 arch/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 680 2006-09-01 04:04 crypto/
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 592 2006-09-01 04:04 drivers/
drwxr-xr-x 32 root root 872 2006-09-01 04:04 fs/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 184 2006-09-01 04:04 lib/
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 552 2006-09-01 04:04 net/
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 264 2006-09-01 21:28 sound/

The /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/sound folder is missing!!! This is why any tentative I do will fail. The modprobe intel8x0 command always fails because the entire folder was deleted after the kernel compilation process!!! The questions are:

1 - Why has it happened?
2 - Have I made any mistake when copiling kernel (the steps I have followed are striclty those I have mentioned earlier)? In fact, I have made no changes in /usr/src/linux/.config file. I have just navigated through its configuration settings to verify whether they match to bootsplash needs, and left them unchanged.

Thansk in advance

The alsa modules of Slackware 11.0 are not included in the kernel package - they are in a separate package, found at /slackware/l/alsa-driver-1.0.11_2.4.33.3-i486-1.tgz.

What happens if you recompile the kernel and keep the same kernel version (2.4.33.3), during the "make modules_install" all modules that are present in /lib/modules/2.4.33.3 but weren't configured during your kernel build will be deleted. So, say bye-bye to the alsa modules.

Solution: simply re-install the alsa-driver package (after mounting the Slackware CDROM#1):
Eric

Bingo! It works!!! Thank you so muck Alien Bob