Beware, though, that if the hard drive you boot from is a SCSI / SATA
one too, you should take a special precaution -- either don't build the
'SCSI disk (sd) driver' nor your SCSI / SATA controller's driver built
as modules (but rather "compile them into the kernel") or use the
"initrd" feature. Otherwise you'll have a chicken-and-egg problem.
Same warning goes about compiling your IDE drivers as modules, with the
difference that IDE drives usually don't have a custom IDE Controller
module.

initrd is how distros (RedHat, Debian and everyone else) make their
kernel packages support all possible SCSI controllers without infinitely
bloating the kernel with tons of drivers "compiled inside". Look up
"initrd" for more info.
If you decide to make your own initrd image with mkinitrd (it's easy --
but, as with all those kernel-compiling games, one mistake can make you
rush for your rescue CD so have one handy), make sure
your /etc/modprobe.conf contains:

   alias scsi_hostadapter yourscsicontrollermodule

For example, my SATA hard drive sitting on an nForce 3 SATA controller,
required:

  alias scsi_hostadapter sata_nv

This "alias" line is how modern versions of mkinitrd determine what SCSI
driver to pack into the initrd image they create.

On ש', 2005-10-29 at 20:27 +0200, Omer Zak wrote:
> Hello Aaron,
> If you did not play too much with the kernel configuration, then you
> probably left all those SCSI device drivers configured as M (modules).
> 
> This means that thosee drivers would be loaded only if the corresponding
> SCSI device is detected when peripherals are being probed.
> 
> Therefore, all those modules would be harmless.  The only damage you'll
> incur is with extra compilation time (few minutes if your computer is
> not too slow).
>                                               --- Omer
> 
> On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 21:09 +0200, Aaron wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am trying to build a custom kernel for debian and as I am building I
> > see a ton of scsi drivers, go by.
> > 
> > There is no way I need all these drivers, but how do I determine which
> > ones I need?
> > 
> > I see that usb storage devices are treated as scsi devices, I also have
> > one plextor scsi cdrom and two onboard controllers.
> > 
> > I am not sure what else would use scsi, but since I have a good chance
> > that the kernel I am compiling now may not boot, I would like the next
> > time I do this to remove as much unneeded things as I can.
> > 
> > In fact is there link to some place that lists what extra uneeded stuff
> > is put in the vanilla kernel, which I can safely exclude?
> > 
> > Thanks
> > Aaron
> 

================================================================To unsubscribe, 
send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to