Hi, I am currently running Mandrake 9.2 with kernel 2.4. I downloaded linux-2.6.1.tar.gz after uncompressing it, I am guessing that there will be more to installing the kernel than just compileing and installing it. Please be detailed in how to install it, I am still very new to linux.

Read the stinkin' README in /usr/src/linux!!! That's why it's there for... taurus

Also, for the 2.6 kernels, the old modutils won't work. Download "Rusty's Module-init-tools" from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/ And you may have to do some changes to your bootscripts, as the module names have changed. But that comes later, first you can try it out. Basically, you have to configure the kernel (the things/drivers that you want) by running "make menuconfig". Then you have to do a "make bzImage" and a "make modules" (for the things you selected to be compiled as modules), and finally a "make modules_install" to copy the modules to /lib/modules/<kernel> To boot from the new kernel, you can do a "make install" if you're using LILO. For grub, just copy the image ./arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.1 and edit the /etc/grub.conf file to reflect the new kernel. README file has details. Also, if you use your computer as a desktop (for real-time stuff), you should enable "preemptible kernel" while you're editing the config.