Unfortunately I won't know if this is the solution because I will be away from Linux until October. When I get back though, the first thing I'll do is report back to this thread! =D

well, i just compiled and installed linux 2.4.33.2 on my slackware 10.2 box and it booted without any problems... so at the very least i can confirm that 2.4.33.2 works fine on slackware 10.2... keep in mind that i'm using the updated glibc packages from /patches...

Got it to boot 2.4.33.2 without patching glibc. I followed Pat's 2nd email that was posted that said it was a name problem...I changed 2.4.33.2 to 2.4.33 in the Makefile and the directory. Here's what I did step by step once I downloaded the tarball for kernel 2.4.33.2:

do this as a user in your home directory:
tar -xvvzf linux-2.4.33.2.tar.gz
mv linux-2.4.33.2 linux-2.4.33
cd linux-2.4.33
make mrproper
cp /boot/config-2.4.32 .config
pico -w Makefile
--change the 4th line to this:

EXTRAVERSION =

make oldconfig
make dep && make clean
change to root
cd ..
mv linux-2.4.33 /usr/src/
cd /usr/src
rm -r linux
ln -s linux-2.4.33 linux
cd linux
make modules_install

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.33
cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.33
cp .config /boot/config-2.4.33
cd /boot
mv System.map System.map.old
ln -s System.map-2.4.33 System.map

pico -w /etc/lilo.conf
add:
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.33
root = /dev/hda1
label = Linux2433
read-only

lilo

reboot

so basically, just get rid of the EXTRAVERSION value, right?? i mean, everything else you posted is stuff you'd normally do no matter what... i would have never imagined it was so easy to work-around the issue... although personally i do prefer getting to the root of the problem and being able to get the kernel installed properly (full version name, etc.)... either way, it's a good tip for those that can't update glibc for whatever reason (and not just on slackware), thanks...

right...just take out the extraversion value. I also changed the name of the kernel directory before compiling the kernel so that it didn't have an extraversion val either. Easy fix!

AFAIK the directory name doesn't have any effect at all, though...

That's good to know...I wasn't sure so I tried it that way since kernel building on my old Slack server takes ~ 6 hours.