First time compiling a new kernel

[Andreas Bauer]

> Tonight, or possibly tomorrow, I will be upgrading my kernel from 2.4.7-10
> to 2.4.18 on my RH7.2 machine.

It depends on what you try to do.  Are you merely interested in updating the 
kernel via rpm, or do you actually want to compile it yourself?  Of course, 
the process is different.  Personally, I find a self-compiled kernel easier 
to maintain and to replace as with new kernel rpms you might also run into 
some (more or less) severe dependency problems.

So, I can recommend to grab the kernel sources, do make xconfig (and spend 
some time there), make dep, make, make bzImage, make modules, make install, 
make modules_install and finally run lilo or grub.  Be sure you have selected 
the correct architecture, otherwise your kernel won't boot!  Maybe a 
boot-disk wouldn't hurt either.

Hope I did not forget anything.  :-)

(And should you need more detailed information, then please let me/us know 
what sort of update mechanism you prefer.)

Andi.