I installed EVERYTHING over my cable connection which wasn't bad at all...

what i really want to do is install fedora core 1 with just the development kits and that's it i want to install just what i want to install... i want to use my machine that has XP and find the http address for the file i need and WGET the file on my machine after i install just the basic kernel.... kernel development kit... the other development kits...

now do i install xfree86 first then stack fluxbox ontop of that?

i'm going to install a browser of choice i'll research til i get off work on which one i want to use... i might use firebird...

but basically i don't want to have this old version of stuff on my computer so i'm gonna install the VERY basics and install the latest stable releases...

Questions!
do i install xfree86 first then fluxbox? it stacks on xfree86 ?

should i as soon as i get the basics on how do i recompile the kernel JUST FOR my hardware? MSI K7 nforce2 chipset board with ac97 audio, AMD 2000+, geforce 2 ti

which is better realtek 8139 or my nvidia ethernet controller?

I'm gonna play quake 3, ut 2004, enemy territory, play mp3's on XMMS, surf the net

this could easily take a while but if i can get my computer streamline like a butterfly it's ALL worth it!

i hear that quake 3 and my enemy territory work on OSS but what if i just install ALSA? i have the worst problems with one time sound working... the next it says it couldn't play audio

You'd probably be better served by Gentoo if you simply want to install the latest stable package of everything. It's got an automated portage tree that handles dependancies.. which can be a problem if you're not aware of them. For instance, you'll probably need more than simply XFree86 or X.org before moving on to installing Fluxbox. Graphics libraries and the like.

Answers:
Yes. No.

Get the kernel from kernel.org, recompile it (documentation included).

I like RealTek products, but I imagine nVidia would work, at least with their drivers. Probably with built in kernel ones, but I've never used nVidia ethernet controllers.

At the very least, figure out how ALSA works before compiling your entire OS from scratch.