Hi, I dunno for the first poster but unloading ns558 causes problems for me too (SB 128 PCI gameport). Some dmesg exerpts : Linux version 2.4.0-test9-rous6 ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.0)) #12 sam oct 7 02:01:57 CEST 2000 [...] es1371: version v0.26 time 01:51:44 Oct 7 2000 es1371: found chip, vendor id 0x1274 device id 0x1371 revision 0x08 es1371: found es1371 rev 8 at io 0xe800 irq 11 es1371: features: joystick 0x200 ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, vendor id1: 0x4352, id2: 0x5913 (Cirrus Logic CS4297A) [...] [loading modules] gameport0: NS558 ISA at 0x200 size 8 speed 1011 kHz /sbin/rmmod ns558 => Segmentation fault In /var/log/messages : Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000004 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: printing eip: Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: c01c6bbb Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: *pde = 00000000 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: Oops: 0002 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: CPU: 0 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: EIP: 0010:[pci_unregister_driver+11/80] Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: EFLAGS: 00010246 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: eax: 00000000 ebx: 00000000 ecx: c7d50000 edx: 00000000 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: esi: ca86e820 edi: 00000000 ebp: c302c000 esp: c277df80 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: ds: 0018 es: 0018 ss: 0018 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: Process rmmod (pid: 1338, stackpage=c277d000) Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: Stack: 00000000 c302c000 ca86e4f3 ca86e820 ca86e000 c011bcbe ca86e000 c302c000 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: fffffff0 c011ac67 ca86e000 00000000 c277c000 00000001 bffff8b4 bfffe808 Oct 8 23:30:26 rousalka kernel: c010af53 bffffa02 0805b228 00000100 00000001 bffff8b4 bfffe808 00000081 Oct 8 23:30:27 rousalka kernel: Call Trace: [nls_cp437:__insmod_nls_cp437_O/lib/modules/2.4.0-test9-rous6/kernel/f+-121613/96] [nls_cp437:__insmod_nls_cp437_O/lib/modules/2.4.0-test9-rous6/kernel/f+-120800/96] [nls_cp437:__insmod_nls_cp437_O/lib/modules/2.4.0-test9-rous6/kernel/f+-122880/96] [free_module+30/176] [nls_cp437:__insmod_nls_cp437_O/lib/modules/2.4.0-test9-rous6/kernel/f+-122880/96] [sys_delete_module+279/496] [nls_cp437:__insmod_nls_cp437_O/lib/modules/2.4.0-test9-rous6/kernel/f+-122880/96] Oct 8 23:30:27 rousalka kernel: [system_call+51/56] Oct 8 23:30:27 rousalka kernel: Code: 89 50 04 89 02 8b 1d e8 93 29 c0 81 fb e8 93 29 c0 74 23 89 By the way since we're talking about this I saw today Linus refused a patch to reorder initializations since he wasn't aware of any problem. There are some. For example I'm stuck with modprobing joystick modules since 2.3. es1371 is initialized *after* the joystick part when both are built staticaly, and since the gameport can't be used before es1371 initialization... Just my 2 centimes, hope this helps someone. -- Nicolas Mailhot - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/