On Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 05:50:44PM +0100, mick crane wrote: > I did think that modules are for the kernel to interact with hardware. > There is for example "dell_smm_hwmon" followed "0" which you'd think was to > be used by software for monitoring the PC hardware.
Use modinfo(8) to learn what a module does, or at least a very brief description of it. In this case: unicorn:~$ modinfo dell_smm_hwmon filename: /lib/modules/5.10.0-7-amd64/kernel/drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.ko alias: i8k license: GPL description: Dell laptop SMM BIOS hwmon driver [...] I know, it's not a lot. > I looked because "apt upgrade" failed to install things in /boot because no > room left. I deleted the oldest kernel stuff of the 3 there and "apt > upgrade" worked. > I was thinking then to remove the unwanted modules to make the kernels > smaller. Modules are sitting on disk waiting to be loaded into memory if they're needed. lsmod shows the ones that are currently loaded into memory. Removing one from memory with rmmod(8) or an equivalent will not reduce the amount of disk space they take up. All it will do is free a tiny bit of RAM, and sacrifice the functionality being provided by the module. If disk space is a serious issue for you, rmmod(8) will not help.
