tom wrote:

> OK I have an old version of slackware and on
> boot up it runs the command
>
> depmod -a
>
> after which a whole slew of unresolved symbols
> come on the screen.
>
> I know I could put an end to that by changing the
> command to
>
> depmod -q
>
> But I prefer to that there be no unresolved symbols.
>
> where does depmod get the symbols to do its work on.
> ec
> my conf.modules file is pretty lean.
>
> ccx:/etc# cat conf.modules
> alias net-pf-4 off
> alias net-pf-5 off
>
> And also where does depmod put its file after it has done
> its work?

depmod gets its information from the files in /lib/modules/xxxxxxx where
xxxxxxx is the version of the kernel running. The object files have an
export section listing the symbols they export. In the case of unresolved
symbols, one modules needs the symbol but no modules has the symbol.

depmod stores the information in /lib/modules/xxxxxx/modules.dep which list
modules that each module needs.