How to install 3rd party module so that it is loaded on boot?

Solution 1:

Using sudo:

1. Edit the /etc/modules file and add the name of the module (without the .ko extension) on its own line. On boot, the kernel will try to load all the modules named in this file.

2. Copy the module to a suitable folder in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers. In my case this was /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/pci. This will place the module in modprobe's database. I don't know if this can be a link.

3. Run depmod. This will find all the dependencies of your module.

4. At this point, I rebooted and then run lsmod | grep module-name to confirm that the module was loaded at boot.

See the man pages for modprobe, lsmod, and depmod for more information.