When the kernel needs a feature that is not resident in the kernel, the kernel module daemon kmod ‘execs’ modprobe to load the module in. modprobe is passed a string in one of two forms:
* A module name like softdog or ppp.
* A more generic identifier like char-major-10-30.
If modprobe is handed a generic identifier, it first looks for that string in the file /etc/modprobe.conf. If it finds an alias line
Next, modprobe looks through the file /lib/modules/version/modules.dep, to see if other modules must be loaded before the requested module may be loaded. This file is created by depmod -a and contains module dependencies.
Lastly, modprobe uses insmod to first load any prerequisite modules into the kernel, and then the requested module. modprobe directs insmod to /lib/modules/version/
