How to rebuild Woody kernel (Newbie)

[DSC Siltec <dscpubl@siltec.lt>]

I've installed Woody, but have discovered that I don't have 
(a) ALSA for my sound (alternately ymfpci.o) or 
(b) support for my USB (which I assume will be necessary if I want to
upload my digital camera pictures to my Linux box.)

So I found out I have to rebuild my kernel.  Never having done this
before,
I went to the Linux Kernel HOWTO, and pulled up HOWTO Rebuild the
Kernel.

The stuff looks like greek to me.  

For one thing, it starts a person out in BASH, switches to X [do you
really need X to rebuild the kernel???], loops out to telnet terminals,
and gets me completely lost in the process.  

For another thing, I am not at all sure which modules I'll be needing,
and it looks like I'll have to know that.  I can pick up my filesystem
from module okay, and I can figure out my chip, and I can probably
safely assume that I have a PCI motherboard.  But most of these things
were bypassed in the initial woody installation.  

Ideally, it would be nice to get a list of the modules that I already
have and their installation values -- I am sure that they would be
listed somewhere in ETC, if I knew where to look.

So I was wondering -- are there any better howtos out there, possibly
more in line with Woody?  Or is there a newbie guide on rebuilding the
kernel?

Sorry to seem stupid here, but it may be an accurate assessment %-)

Anyhow, this looks like a fairly scary process when I may wreck the
system and have no idea what I am doing (kid at the wheel of a
steamroller syndrome... what's this button do?).  

Any suggestions?


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