[GLLUG] Debian 2.4 Bootup Issues

[Brian Hoort]

When booting my laptop into a 2.2.18 kernel, I have to:
# /etc/init.d/networking stop && /etc/init.d/networking start
because, presumably, the networking tries to initialize before PCMCIA does.
Over the weekend I downloaded a 2.4.19 kernel-image and it's 
kernel-pcmcia-modules. After hours of playing, I have figured out that I 
have to:
# modprobe i823xxx (to load the pcmcia driver)
# /etc/init.d/pcmcia stop && /etc/init.d/pcmcia start
# /etc/init.d/networking stop && /etc/init.d/networking start

So I have a few questions for you Debian wizards:
1. Why isn't the i823xxx.o module for the pcmcia loading at boot?
2. Why is the networking being initialized before pcmcia?
3. How do I fix this, the right way?

Extra Question 4:
On a completely different note, I did a lot of reading up on modules over 
the weekend in trying to fix this problem and learned that Debian is 
configured to depmod -a on every boot. While booting I can see this occur, 
and it takes a long time. Isn't this overkill? You should only have to do 
that after loading new modules, which presumably, most people don't do very 
often after getting their PCs setup right. Shoot, if I get this working I'm 
not liable to do that for a LONG time. :) Couldn't we all save a lot of 
time booting by turning this off?

Thanks



-- 
Brian Hoort