Stop the kernel from auto-loading drivers that keep crashing your hardware

Technical Briefing | 11/2/2026

We have all been there. You plug in a device or run a hardware scan, and suddenly the kernel decides that a specific driver is the perfect fit. Then the logs fill with tracebacks, the machine starts stuttering, and your shell becomes unresponsive. Letting the kernel guess your module needs is usually convenient until it picks one that hangs your PCI bus.

Why blacklisting is not always enough

The standard approach is dropping a file into modprobe.d/ to blacklist the module. That works fine for cold boots, but it does nothing if you trigger a hotplug event or if a dependency chain pulls the module in anyway. If you want to stop the kernel from ever touching a specific piece of hardware code, you have to do more than just ignore it.

echo install psmouse /bin/true | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-psmouse.conf

• The install command forces the kernel to execute a no-op instead of loading the binary
• It prevents dependency resolution from bypassing your blacklist file
• You can check current loaded modules using lsmod before and after the change

Using the install directive is a cleaner way to force the kernel into submission. It effectively treats the module as if it is already installed, which prevents the loader from doing anything else. Next time you see a driver fighting with your firmware, skip the generic blacklist and just kill the process before it starts.