Step 5 – installing the kernel modules
In the previous step, all the kernel config options that were marked as m – in effect, all the kernel modules, the *.ko files – have by now been built within the source tree. As you shall learn, that’s not quite enough: they must now be installed into a known location on the system. This section covers these details.
Locating the kernel modules within the kernel source
As you just learned, the previous step – building the kernel image and modules – resulted in the compressed and uncompressed kernel images being generated, as well as all the kernel modules (as specified by our kernel config). Kernel modules are identified as files that always have a .ko (for kernel object) suffix. These modules are very useful; they give us kernel functionality in a modular manner (we can decide to plug them in or out of kernel memory at will; the following two chapters will go into great detail on the topic).
