in order to install drivers for my graphics and modem, ive read i need to install the kernel-source, ive searched and followed few different guides using apt-get install kernel-source 2.4.18

But the drivers (the modem in this case) is telling me to install the kernel-source.

i thort id sorted it when i found out i had to
tar xvfj kernel-source-2.4.18

and then

ln -s /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18 /usr/src/linux

but afterwards, i still got the same error.
is my kernel-source installed or not? if not what do i need to do?
thanks.

No, you don't have your kernel installed yet. You only untarred the source and created a symlink to its directory. That's the beginning of it, though. Look at those links who were provided to me by someone willing to help: Link1 and link2 and link3. They helped me a lot.

Yet, you might want to use the 2.6.10 kernel, the latest production version. The 2.4 is quite old . You can get the latest sources from www.kernel.org.

EDIT: you told us you untarred the source, but where?

If there's a file in /usr/src/linux pointing to kernel-source-2.4.18 then it should work. If there are others besides the link to kernel-source-2.4.18 you need to remove them. Do you see kernel-source-2.4.18 in /usr/src? If so it's installed. If your trying to install the Nvidia drivers you might need to use the advanced option and physically point it to /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18. You can read the directions for the Nvidia drivers in /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README.

Yes upgrading your kernel is highly recommended. If you cant use the 2.6 kernel on your distro at least upgrade to 2.4.28.

Thanks for the links, im printing them right now

I untarred the source into /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.18

Im using the debian 3.0r4 DVD and i think this is the newest kernel on it.