I've been unsuccessfully trying to compile the 2.6.12 kernel on my box running Red Hat Linux 9. When I run "make menuconfig" in a terminal program, I get lines and lines of errors from the Kconfig file in each directory. They look something like this:

"Kconfig: 26: invalid menu option"
"Kconfig: 26: syntax error, unexpected T_TRISTATE"
"Kconfig: 29..."

Each of the lines in the particular Kconfig file where it reports the errors is part of the help text for a build option. The same happens when I try "make config". Googling hasn't helped... Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Do you have the ncurses-devel package installed on your system? The menuconfig uses ncurses, so you'll need to have the development headers and libraries.

Also, be advised that the module tools shipped with RH9 (lsmod, modprobe, etc.) won't wotk with a 2.6 kernel (they're too old), so you'll have to upgrade them too.

Thanks, I do have ncurses, but if the other packages are too old too, maybe it would be worth just installing SuSE instead, since I've got a much newer version of that...

ya, that may be a better option.
b'coz upgrading RH 9 2.4.x to 2.6.x is a tough and time taking job. U will have to do many upgradations.
So better have some 2.6.x and then re-compile that according to yr need

regards