module-init-tools-3.2 - Utilities for manipulating kernel modules

The module-init-tools from kernel.org: modprobe, insmod, rmmod and lsmod. We have chosen to use these because we can compile modutils/modprobe to support compressed (.gz) modules to save space. To do this we use the option --enable-zlib, we then clean and copy the binaries. We do not take everything that has been created, only what we need: depmod, insmod, modinfo, modprobe and rmmod in /sbin and lsmod in /bin:

 # cd ..

 # wget http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/module-init-tools-3.2.tar.bz2

 # tar xjf module-init-tools-3.2.tar.bz2

 # cd module-init-tools-3.2

 # ./configure --enable-zlib --prefix=/usr --sbindir=/sbin --bindir=/bin \

   --sysconfdir=/etc --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man

 # make

 # make DESTDIR=$PWD/_pkg install

 # strip -v _pkg/sbin/{depmod,insmod,modinfo,modprobe,rmmod}

 # strip -v _pkg/bin/lsmod

 # cp -i _pkg/sbin/{depmod,insmod,modinfo,modprobe,rmmod} $fs/sbin

 # cp -i _pkg/bin/lsmod $fs/bin

 # cd ..

Copy kernel modules

Copy files from linux-2.6.20/_pkg:

 # cp -a linux-2.6.20/_pkg/lib/* $fs/lib

Compress kernel modules

Compress modules, this step will gain us back around 50% of available space. We begin by moving into the rootfs, then we search for all files with the .ko extension, and compress them. 

 # cd lib/modules/2.6.20-slitaz

 # find . -name "*.ko" -exec gzip '{}' \;

 # sed 's/\.ko/.ko.gz/g' modules.dep > tmp.dep

 # rm modules.dep

 # mv tmp.dep modules.dep