Module Assistant on Debian How To

Module Assistant on Debian

module-assistant (often abbreviated as m-a) can be used in command line or in interactive mode :

To keep it simple, we run all the commands as root,

so open a terminal as root

in Gnome Application menu/Accessories/Root Terminal.

or KDE menu/System/More Applications/Terminal Program - Super User Mode.

First we need to install module-assistant (you can re-run that command if you aren't sure).

apt-get install module-assistant

Then we get module-assistant to download the headers corresponding to the current kernel, and other 'build-essential' tools... simply run :

m-a prepare

Update list of module :

      m-a update

INTERACTIVE MODE

     If you don't like typing commands, you can run module-assistant in interactive mode. simply type : 

m-a

     This will take you to a menu with the options: Overview, Update, Prepare, Select and Exit. Prepare will configure and install any packages you need in order to compile kernel modules (e.g. kernel headers, gcc, etc). The Select menu takes you to a screen where you can select which modules you want to compile.

m-a -t list | grep -E '^[^ ].*\(' | cut -d " " -f 1 | sort

If you want the package description, use:

for x in $( m-a -t list | grep -E '^[^ ]\

.*(' | cut -d " " -f 1 | sort ) ;\

do  echo Package: $x ; (apt-cache show $x |\

grep -E '^(Description|Package| )' ) \

2>&1  ; echo  ; done | uniq  > /tmp/m-a