All right, this would not have happened had there been kernel images for potato (or an obvious link thereto) near the basic potato distribution folder, but the critter IS running, as long as I log in at various alt-F1 to alt-F6s and leave it awaiting commands on some of them.
But there's no obvious place to defnurgle /etc/inittab or whatever other configuration file I need to defnurgle, to stop this lonesome modprobe that scrolls all over my screen looking for its lost "modules.dep". (It begins during the boot process & continues until I've logged on and gotten the critter awaiting commands, then returns if I give it one on the wrong terminal, WHILE a command is executing, and also when I log out or shut down. This is no doubt a valuable learning experience, but can someone please let me know WHAT I'll need to learn for this & where to look for it? Forrest Curo San Diego