to the previous post re: building a kernel, the most important information to remember is to move the kernel source out from under that silly /usr/src/linux directory and (if you have the room) to somewhere under your home directory.
all the kernel config and building can be done as a regular user, and only needs root (or sudo) privilege to finally install it. and as a bonus (this week only!), if you remove from /usr stuff that you normally want to hack on, you should be able to mount the /usr filesystem read-only for normal system operation. (of course, you'd temporarily mount it RW for installing new software, but for the most part, normal operation should not need write access to /usr.) think of it as a safety net.
rday
