Probing for Kernel Configuration

[Eric Bresie <ebresie@usa.net>]

I just recently installed a new version of Redhat 7.2 and had problems with
some of my devices not being supported as part of the stock
installation...this got me thinking...I noticed that when I did a lspci that a
majority of my hardware was identified, but there was no guarantee that the
module to support that hardware is present in the kernel or configured..

Is it possible prior to kernel configuration to perhaps have something like a
make newconfig or make probe-config to probe the system and give a guess as to
what modules are needed for a given system...I guess you could think of it
kind of as a plug-n-play for kernel configuration.

I could see how this might require some mapping of hardware probed information
to kernel config options which would then enable them (and if appropriate set
to current settings).  And also might require some default utilities like the
pci utilities, the usb utilities, scsi, etc...

Any comments?

Eric Bresie
ebresie@usa.net