Hello. I'd be grateful if you can answer some of this:

I'm wondering if I, since I have this chipset:

VIA KT266 or KT266A AGPset (VT8366 or VT 8366A + VT8233)

can under the "IDE ATA ATAPI block devices" section in the make xconfig program skip every other chipset alternative in the name of the one I have got or do I need something else in this section would you say?

Also, is it common or recommended practice to use a old .config file from the previous kernel version build to compile the new kernel so things will go faster? Are there any downsides to this?

Hi,

you can check the chipsets you need if you go on the "HELP" options of every chipset, there you see which chipset this driver supports. Also i think that you don't need chipsets that are named "intel" or "sis" or summin, so check out the help option

Using old .config files is possible, but i don't think that you want to do this, 'cause there are mostly lots of changes in the newer kernels that aren't recognized by older .config files ...

cu