Take the 2-minute tour ×  When I do a lspci -k on my Kubuntu
with a 3.2.0-29-generic kernel I can see something like this:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G86
[Quadro NVS 290] (rev a1)     Subsystem: NVIDIA Corporation
Device 0492     Kernel driver in use: nvidia     Kernel modules:
nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb  There is a kernel driver
nvidia and kernel modules nvidia_current, nouveau, nvidiafb.
Now I wondered what might be the difference between Kernel
drivers and Kernel modules?  share|improve this question  5
Answers 5  up vote 21 down vote accepted  A kernel module is a
bit of compiled code that can be inserted into the kernel at
run-time, such as with insmod or modprobe.  A driver is a bit of
code that runs in the kernel to talk to some hardware device. It
"drives" the hardware. Most every bit of hardware in your
computer has an associated driver[*]. A large part of a running
kernel is driver code; the rest of the code provides generic
services like memory management, IPC, s