Thread: dmesg questions
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Old 02-19-2008, 03:27 PM
Floyd L. Davidson
 
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Default Re: dmesg questions

texstefano@libero.it (Stefano) wrote:
>At boot time i see two fatal error regarding snd_oss_dsp and
>snd_oss_mixer not found.
>I have two questions abot it, why the system is looking for that two
>modules?
>Since i use alsa to take care of my sound, i completed disabled oss in
>the kernel, no modules have been compiled and no entry at all for oss.
>The second question is this.
>When i run "dmesg | grep FATAL" or a "dmesg | less" to read every
>single line with care, i dont' see any line with "FATAL" , like if
>there would not be any error.
>
>Thanks for any help,
>
>Stefano


I'm not sure about the specifics, and Jacek K. Błaszkowsk has
already outlined what probably counts the most. But there are
two other, rather general, points about the above questions.

First, having "disabled oss in the kernel" is one thing, but stopping
the system from trying to load it at boot time is an entirely
different thing!

You can compile dozens of modules with the kernel, and then not
load a one of them when the system is booted. Nothing happens.
But of course if you do the opposite and at boot time attempt to
load even one module that has not been compiled there will be an
error message. (And *then* nothing happens, as the system just
goes right ahead and works anyway, but without whatever the
module provides.)

Hence, if the modules for OSS are not compiled, the scripts in
/etc/rc.d (probably rc.modules, but grep them all for any
specific module just to be sure) need to be adjusted so that no
attempt is made to load them at boot time. That will eliminate
the error message, which just not compiling the module won't.

Which brings up the second point, boot time error messages in
the buffer, and else where... can be a little strange. I
haven't looked at it for a long time and simply don't remember
the details, so I can't provide a a truly definitive answer. An
idea of what might happen is possible though. And that is,
there are *different* messages seen and recorded. You'll note
that if you put something into one of the /etc/rc.d scripts to
load a given module at boot time, you get a progress message on
the screen, but if you do that manually after the system has
booted there will not be a message on the screen. And the
screen message might be different than what you can find in the
buffer using dmesg.

And in any case, you need to look in /var/log for other possible
messages! (Which might be slightly different that the above
too!)

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@barrow.com
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