The Debian package of Dirvish presently ships with a master.conf example that includes an exclude for core files. Unfortunately, by dumb coincidence, it also excludes drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko which is rather critical for many things, including USB itself.

Of course I discover this after finishing a three hour recovery using DI to rebuild my LVM’d laptop. Needless to say, my 802.11g card doesn’t load. I wander upstairs with the box to try to discover why USB support is suddenly broken.

In either case, the lesson is twofold. Always verify your backups. If you can’t restore there’s no point. Know what your exclude lists are actually doing before you run with them.