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Operating Systems Linux Fedora Is Kernel module is the same as a device driver? Post 302519073 by Corona688 on Tuesday 3rd of May 2011 02:00:04 AM
Old 05-03-2011
lsmod shows which modules are using what other modules, though not as a tree.

It's not always as simple as one module for one device. USB needs a whole bunch of modules to do anything, plus sometimes device-specific things on top of the generic drivers -- but then again, sometimes the generic ones are enough. Sound also takes a bunch of interdependent modules to work.

There's also modules that don't do anything device-related -- like a module to let the kernel understand ext4 filesystems.

So it's really not the same thing, but often close enough for most purposes.

These modules can also be built right into the kernel, instead of being loaded from a file, too. It's possible to create a kernel that loads no modules for anything, ever. You can even build parts of a set of modules into the kernel and leave part of it out. This is sometimes important for things like ALSA, where you might want to replace some modules with updated ones later, but need certain basic parts built in.
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DRIVER_MODULE(9)					   BSD Kernel Developer's Manual					  DRIVER_MODULE(9)

NAME
DRIVER_MODULE -- kernel driver declaration macro SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/param.h> #include <sys/kernel.h> #include <sys/bus.h> #include <sys/module.h> DRIVER_MODULE(name, busname, driver_t driver, devclass_t devclass, modeventhand_t evh, void *arg); MULTI_DRIVER_MODULE(name, busname, driver_t drivers[], devclass_t devclass, modeventhand_t evh, void *arg); DESCRIPTION
The DRIVER_MODULE() macro declares a kernel driver. DRIVER_MODULE() expands to the real driver declaration, where the phrase name is used as the naming prefix for the driver and its functions. Note that it is supplied as plain text, and not a char or char *. busname is the parent bus of the driver (PCI, ISA, PPBUS and others), e.g. 'pci', 'isa', or 'ppbus'. The identifier used in DRIVER_MODULE() can be different from the driver name. Also, the same driver identifier can exist on different busses, which is a pretty clean way of making front ends for different cards using the same driver on the same or different busses. For example, the following is allowed: DRIVER_MODULE(foo, isa, foo_driver, foo_devclass, NULL, NULL); DRIVER_MODULE(foo, pci, foo_driver, foo_devclass, NULL, NULL); driver is the driver of type driver_t, which contains the information about the driver and is therefore one of the two most important parts of the call to DRIVER_MODULE(). The devclass argument contains the kernel-internal information about the device, which will be used within the kernel driver module. The evh argument is the event handler which is called when the driver (or module) is loaded or unloaded (see module(9)). The arg is unused at this time and should be a NULL pointer. MULTI_DRIVER_MODULE() is a special version of DRIVER_MODULE(), which takes a list of drivers instead of a single driver instance. SEE ALSO
device(9), driver(9), module(9) AUTHORS
This manual page was written by Alexander Langer <alex@FreeBSD.org>. BSD
May 16, 2000 BSD
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