Modutils 2.1.121 does NOT work when kmod is disbaled with the 2.2.6 kernel. (it won't automagically load modules, or use ANY settings in the conf.modules file.) IT will ONLY work properly with "kmod" enabled in the kernel. The nall settings from conf.modules will be used, and the system will behave. Unfortunately I switch between 2.0 and 2.2 often and under 2.0 auto-loading of modules will not work with modutils 2.1.121. IT did previously work with modutils 2.1.85-9 distributed with the stock redhat 5.2. I'm completely baffled. For example: under 2.0.36 kernel, with modutils 2.1.121 "modprobe sb" fails with the following error: Your must probe the sb module with I/O=xxx IRQ=xxx dma=xxx under 2.2.6 with modutils 2.1.121, and kmod enabled modprobe sb works and autoloads all of the necessary modules. (see extra modules loaded below in conf.modules file.) With 2.2.6 with modutils 2.1.121 and kmod DISABLED it (doesn't) works just as the 2.0 series above. (kerneld isn't doing its job, even though it is running) /etc/conf.modules: alias char-major-81 bttv alias eth0 3c59x alias scsi_hostadapter BusLogic alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc alias char-major-14 sound alias net-pf-3 off # no ax25 module available (yet) alias net-pf-4 off # if you don't use the ipx module alias net-pf-5 off post-install sound /sbin/modprobe "-k" "opl3" post-install opl3 /sbin/modprobe "-k" "sb" post-install sb /sbin/modprobe "-k" "awe_wave" post-install awe_wave /usr/local/bin/sfxload /usr/lib/oss/synthgm.sf2 options sb io=0x280 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x300 options opl3 io=0x388 options awe_wave io=0x680 options sound dmabuf=1 options parport_pc io=0x378
kerneld is not supposed to work on 2.2 systems. That's why kmod is there.
You will need the version of modutils that shipped with 5.2 for use with 2.0.x kernels and the newer modutils package for 2.2.x kernels. They are not interchangeable.