I'm in the process of upgrading the kernel on a RH9 box (currently kernel 2.4.20) to 2.6.11.6. While applying the patches to ther kernel, I got the following error while applying the second patch:

gunzip -c /path/to/patches/patch-2.6.11.2.gz | patch -p1
patching file Makefile
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
1 out of 1 hunk FAILED -- saving rejects to file Makefile.rej
patching file drivers/input/serio/i8042-x86ia64io.h
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected! Assume -R? [n]
Apply anyway? [n]
Skipping patch.
3 out of 3 hunks ignored -- saving rejects to file drivers/input/serio/i8042-x86ia64io.h.rej
patching file drivers/md/raid6altivec.uc
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected! Assume -R? [n]
Apply anyway? [n]
Skipping patch.
1 out of 1 hunk ignored -- saving rejects to file drivers/md/raid6altivec.uc.rej
patching file fs/eventpoll.c

This is my first kernel compile and thus far Google hasn't found anything. Can anyone at LQ lend a hand?

You can't patch a 2.4 to a 2.6. You'll just have to download the 2.6 kernel and start from there. BTW, when you patch a kernel, it has to be in increments; 2.4.23 to 2.4.24, 2.4.25, 2.4.26... etc.

Sorry, I should've mentioned...that's what I'm doing. I've downloaded the 2.6.11 kernel, uncompressed it, and I 'm applying the patches directly to the linux-2.6.11 directory.

That happens when the patch program finds the source files to be different from what the patch files were made to patch. That could be for any number of reasons. Perhaps you aren't applying them in the proper order?