Going to give it another shot-need more help

["Mark Healey" <deblist@healeyonline.com>]

Many of you have read my saga of trying to install Debian and
witnessed my frustration.

The main problem is that my onboard nic isn't supported by the kernel
on the CD and there is no module for it installed either.

This left me with no networking so I couldn't use any of the clever
debian install utilites.

I recieved many suggestions to remedy the problem, non of them easy.

I've decided to try to recompile the latest kernel.  I figure that it
would be nice to have the latest kernel with support for only the
hardware I have (or think I might add in the future) and none for what
I won't ever have.  But, this is hacker level stuff I've never done,
so I'm going to need a whole-lotta help.

Any downloads required are going to have to be done on my OS/2 machine
and burned to a CD.

One of my main concerns is that I don't want to have to go through a
whole stack of CD becuasue I didn't get everything I need and have to
go back.

I currently have the default "vanilla" installation in the machine I
plan to put Debian on (It's eventual home will be inside a Mame cab).

I need to know which tools I need.

Here is what I know I will need and know that I have

make
gcc
the .tar.gz of my nic drivers.

I need to know what is part of the kernel source package?  IDE hard
drive support?  Floppy support (even thought I don't have one
installed I might in the future)? USB?  Mouse, Serial and Paralell
ports?

I'm also wondering if I will be able to boot into the old kernel if
teh new one doesn't work?

These are all my preliminary questions.  I'm sure the answers will
result in more questions so please be patient.





Mark Healey
deblist@healeyonline.com

Giving debian a chance.