BeagleBox

The problem with this idea is the firmware, which also lives under /lib on the rootfs. Since both are already available I may be able to separate out the building of the rootfs image from the rootfs build and have the latter collect the additional bits (firmware and modules) before generating the image.

Yup, will need to grab the firmware manually. "make firmware" doesn't pick up the ar9170 firmware even if the module is enabled in the build.

The build already handles grabbing kernel modules and stuffing them into the rootfs. So the modules are there. What isn't there is automated device handling. That would be udev. mdev is not sufficient if BeagleBox is to permit hotplugging any old wireless network adapter. So we need to integrate the use of udev.

To get started, read these:
Introduction to udev: http://www.linux.com/news/hardware/peripherals/180950-udev
udev home page: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/hotplug/udev.html
udev on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev

The original problem is addressed. Implementation of udev will be tracked in a separate task.