ubuntu blacklist doesn't really block drivers?

Question

Hey, I'm trying to understand the relation between ubuntu's /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-wifi.conf and the "Additional drivers" utility. Even though I'm blacklisting all these guys:

blacklist b43
blacklist bcm
blacklist ssb
blacklist b43legacy

I goto system settings->additional drivers, and activate "broadcom STA wireless driver", restart, and it works (but gives me trouble). What's the deal? Isn't blacklisting supposed to block this module/driver from loading?

Even worse, when I modprobe -l | grep b43 I can see b43 and b43legacy. Am I missing the meaning of blacklisting?

Answer 1

Yes, that's because of the ill-devised dependency nonsense which is so widespread in Linux. If a driver is blacklisted Linux. Linux will not load, but if a driver is "required" by a dependency the driver is loaded anyway regardless if it is blacklisted or not.