Alright I just installed Slackware 9.1
I downloaded the kernel linux-2.6.0.tar.bz2
now I went through the steps on the kernel build guide that I found on here
which was extremely helpful

make menuconfig (make your changes here...when done, save your new configuration)
make dep (sets all the kernel dependencies)
make clean (removes un-needed files)
make bzImage (builds the kernel)
make
make install (installs, moves and renames all the needed files and updates lilo)
make modules (builds all the kernel modules)
make modules_install (installs the modules)

all was going good untill I got to 'make bzImage'
and it came up with this error

kernel/exit.c: In function `exit_notify':
kernel/exit.c:733: internal error: Segmentation fault
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
See ttp://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html for instructions.
make[1]: *** [kernel/exit.o] Error 1
make: *** [kernel] Error 2

and im new so I dont know how to troubleshoot that well
what is wrong?

well basically it's a segfault, which we have no chance of telling you what went wrong. basically just try again. for some reason the compiler choked, not from an error in the code, but something in the current system usually. segfaults suck.

when I installed i used the fat2 (2 i think) choice... which was the first... and inodes at 4000 (default) should i use a different system or inode number?