[mythtv-users] Loading device at boot time

[Nick]

On 03/03/06, Peter Diffey <pedro at heroic.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi
>
> >/ I recently added a QAM HDTV tuner to my slave backend.  When it boots,
> />/ it seems to load the saa7134 V4L driver fine, but I need to load the
> />/ saa7134-dvb driver.  I can do this with a modprobe but I wanted to do it
> />/ with the modules.conf file.  I've done this with ivtv before my aliasing
> />/ the char-major device to it, but I'm not sure how to do this with the
> />/ DVB drivers or if it is even the right place.  I'm running FC4 with the
> />/ latest (2.6.15) kernel.  Please advise how I can get these to load
> />/ without slapping them into an rc.local file.
> /
> >Can this be done in the way that Jarod has patched rc.sysinit to catch
> >the aliases from modules.conf and have them loaded much earlier on in
> >the boot process?
>
> As a general rule, it is bad practice to go making changes to things like rc.sysinit, as this is a
> "system file" ie it forms part of the Linux core. A future yum upgrade may overwrite this file and remove
> all your hand crafted changed.

Thanks for the information. I've kept everything in rc.local (ivtv,
dvb and lirc/ledxmit) since installing, but have always wondered
whether there is a 'proper' location to enter module names to be
loaded automatically. After Googling, it seems as though non-FC
distros do have such a facility but having always used RH distros I've
been trying to find a solution. Jarod's update to rc.sysinit seemed to
be one way of doing it, but I hadn't taken into account the
possibility of that file being overwritten.

> If you need something to load earlier, then create your own start script - rip off an existing Sxxyyyy
> script and use chkconfig to get it into the correct run levels. If you want it to load really early,
> calling it S0000aabsolutely_the_first_thing should do it. Again that ain't gonna get blown away in an upgrade.
>

Sounds like a contrib script for MythTV perhaps? Having it contain
ivtv/DVB/HDTV/etc modprobe entries that can be commented out would be
useful and would ensure the modules were loaded before the backend is
brought up. Having a start/stop feature to load/unload on command
would also be useful.

> Regarding modules/modprobe.conf entries, there seems to be a lot of hokus-pokus about this file - most of
> which seems to be mis-information, as far as I can see most devices do not need entries in that file.

In my modules.conf, I have mainly aliases, and a couple of module
options. Are the aliases cosmetic (i.e. will the hardware work
normally in all applications without them). If I modprobe my
non-loading modules in rc.local, I understand that I just pass these
options to modprobe at the time of loading? If only some entries are
extraneous, what is the best way to determine this?

> As regards putting modprobe commands in rc.local why not ? its "KISS - keep it simple stupid" stuff, why
> look for hard solutions if rc.local works.

For me as a fairly serious home user, I initially thought it was too
kludgey, that there should be a 'proper' way to achieve this having
read some distros cater for this. I've left everything in rc.local
because 'it just works' but have always wondered nonetheless :-)

Thanks,
Nick