Ok, so I finally got this Gentoo Linux 1.4 installed. It took some time because of a number of problems during the installation (corrupted stagefile etc...) but now it seems like things are going to work, actually

I got KDE working about an hour ago, and just a moment ago I tried to start Xcdroast - everything went fine except that it didn't find my cd-recorder.....

...I started searching the net. What I found was that ide-cdrw's should be treated as scsi-devices (emulated) in order to use them. In RedHat, which I had before this, it wasn't a problem as the system seemed to detect the burner and (automatically?) do the things to get it work...or at least I didn't do any hard work myself.

So the situation is now that I can't use my cdrw - I can't read it nor write to it. This problem should be solved, and the Xcd roast's homepage (faq) told me to update my kernel, add a module to it or something and then edit some lines in some configfiles. No problem - except the kernel-updating-part....!

As I'm a total newbie (and I mean it!) with Gentoo Linux, and not too familiar with updating kernels neither, could you please tell me how to do this?

If you happen to know or can give me advice (like manual4fools ) on how this whole process is done, please do so....

It is in the gentoo install manual.There is an explanation what you need to enable for your kernel to handle ide-scsi emulation.
Also don't forget to append hdx=ide-scsi to your bootloader.

ok, I found it in the manual...but there it's done during the installation, and the kernel is edited before compiling it for the first time. so how does it go if I already have a working system and a kernel? do I have to create a totally new one and compile it, or what..? and...how is this actually done, to avoid problems? (ok, quite a series of questions but I really don't know)

or is there possibly some easier way (I guess not...)?

Nah - you'll have to recompile the kernel.Just do it tha same way as in the manual.
Be root,do cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
at that point the old configuration should be there;just add the ide-scsi thing and then do
make dep && make clean bzImage modules modules_install
Move the new bzImage into /boot and run lilo if you use it.

ok, I'll try that...

thanks.