The input core modules deal with USB keyboards, mice, etc.

devfs is very nice, but not all drivers have been converted yet. For those you still have to add the nodes by hand. devfsd is needed for the "automagic" features, so you may want to set the "start at boot" option.

Kernel 2.4 breaks diald if you use it over a TCP/IP network interface because those no longer show up in /dev (regardless of whether you use devfs or not)

Direct Rendering Manager is the kernel part of the XFree86 Direct Rendering Infrastructure, but only a select few cards are supported. There are some strange things here as well. There is a SiS kernel module, but it doesn't show anywhere in the kernel config.