With regard to my previous message: I have solved the expect/tty/modem 
problem. It required recompiling expect (and tcl and tk). It also 
required reducing the speed to which the modem ttys were set. It appears 
that the tty/modem system loses chaacters above 33.8kBps in my 
configuration. Of course the modem works perfectly at 56.7k under 
minicom (how come ?).

The question wrt. lkm remains.

thanks,
Peter