o.k. , I made a mistake.
I only had a few bucks and I wanted to get a dual boot before I start back at a seven day a week job, but I bought the wrong book.
it came with kernel-2.4.20-6 and no kernel-source2.4.20-6.
(duh, since it does not exist.)
as a matter of fact the word kernel is not even in the index.

so I need to upgrade, of cource
I download kernel & kernel-source2.4.20-8 rpm's from red hat and
rpm -ivh or Uvh them (can't remember, doesn't matter?)
and at grub I can use 2.4.20-8 which seems positive.

but I am still having REAL trouble configuring a pctel driver.

I must be running a TOY version of rh9
what can you tell me I need to get in order to have the adult version???

that is, Is there more I must download?
such as kernel-util-2.4.20-8.29 et al ?
please help me folks! put yourself in my shoes and tell me what I should make sure I have, as far as upgrades.

Not sure that RH puts out a "toy" version of their software, but an excellent centralized source for downloading any of the major distros can be found at http://www.linuxiso.org/ The downloads are free. -- J.W.

The "book" is likely RH Linux 9 for Dummies... or similar.
The "toy" version of Linux is called "Publishers Edition" beware!
He needs the kernel source headers for the linmodem modem (?) driver he's using, this does not come with the publishers edition - however, the gnu license requires that the source is available(!) so writing to the book publishers or the authors will help.

The problem with Publishers edition is when you upgrade from RHN - the rpm must check your current installation and assume your configuration is OK and 100% compatable. Then it just updates everything you already have in your kernel. In other words: if you start out with no headers, you ain't gonna get none via rpm.

I suspect that you can get the header files from RHN but I never did figure out how.

maddog reccommended getting the latest kernel tarball from www.kernel.org (?) and customising - though RHN do not like you doing that. maddog also has a full Fedora distro with Fedors for Dummies on DVD which should not show these problems.

Simon