Rhetorical question (in about 2 days it won't be so rhetorical):

If I were to upgrade my kernel from 2.4.x to 2.6.x, at what point would I be able to delete my 2.4.x kernel/source/headers? And where would I find these on a typical Slack 10.2 installation? (I know the source would be in /usr/src/linux-2.4.x...)

I obviously would have to tweak my new kernel and make sure it's stable/bootable/usable. After that, are there any other requirements? Will I need to keep my old 2.4 information for any previously-compiled software? Will I need to re-compile anything? (For instance, the nVIDIA driver insists on being recompiled every time the kernel is recompiled, even if nothing changed.)

Thanks for any comments/suggestions.

Matt

I would keep the old kernel around. It doesn't take that much space and you may find you will want it for one thing or another later down the road. I would say once you're at the new kernel level and are happily running for a few weeks then kill it.

You can delete the kernel source for the 2.4 kernel if you want to save space; you would only need it to compile a new 2.4 kernel or a 2.4 kernel module/driver. If you don't need to compile kernel stuff you can even run without the kernel source/headers and many distros ship without either.
You will have to recompile any kernel modules/drivers for your 2.6 kernel that you did for your 2.4 kernel. Most commonly these are your graphics card driver(nvidia or ati) and ndiswrapper if you are running a wireless card that needs it. Programs in general do not need to be recompiled as these are compiled against your C and C++ libraries with gcc, all of which will not change with your new kernel.

Thanks to both of you for the information. Maybe I'll keep the 2.4 kernel around until I get bored, then delete it and see what breaks (though with your advice, the answer should be nothing).

You shouldn't delete your kernel headers. You can delete kernel source (even I don't recommend), but not kernel headers. Kernel headers are used to compile the programs by glibc and kernel source is usually needed when you install additional drivers not supported by kernel, for example, nvidia.

If he upgrades to a 2.6 kernel successfully, he should be able to delete the 2.4 kernel headers once his stable on 2.6, right?

Peace...