Do I?

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If you mean "I have Patrick's kernel-firmware and kernel-headers packages at the moment, do I need to build my own kernel-firmware and kernel-headers packages and remove Patrick's packages", the answer is No.

If you mean "at the moment I have no kernel-firmware and kernel-headers packages whatsoever, is this a good idea" the answer is also No.

You only need firmware if you have hardware that depends on it. You only need kernel headers to build out-of-tree proprietary drivers.

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That may be true in other distros, but in Slackware, the kernel-headers package is correlated with glibc, not necessarily with the running kernel. 3rd-party modules will build against the headers within the kernel source, which is different than what the kernel-headers package provides.

@OP, you will likely need the firmware package for at least wireless or display drivers support. You can usually just install Pat's kernel-firmware package, but you're free to install your own. Pat even includes a SlackBuild on your favorite mirro that will grab the latest firmware and package it up for you.

As for kernel headers, unless you have a really good reason to do so (if you're not sure... it's not a good enough reason), use the kernel-headers package that Pat provides, no matter what kernel you actually run on your system.

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