It wasn't a waste of time, I made a typo in lilo.config and I am assuming thats why it wasn't working, so I tried to upgrade the kernel three times instead of just once :)

Though now I don't have any sound. Not even the internal speaker beeps when I make an error in the command line. When I start KDE I get this error message:

Sound server informational message:

Error while initializing the sound driver:

device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)

The sound will continue, using the null output device

Weird. I looked at my configured kernel and I have selected to install all the defaults. My soundcard, a Soundblaster Live! Value, isn't specifically listed like other cards are, so I didn't do anything. When I run alsaconf, it tells me there is no supported PCI or PnP cards found. Hum, any ideas, or should I start a new thread? I think I've don something wrong when configuring my new kernel.

What are you talking about...??

# make menuconfig

Device Drivers > Sound > Alsa
PCI Devices > EMU10k1 (SBLive!,..)

Yeah, I got that from a friend over IRC. Just popped back to say I got it working. Thanks for posting though, Xian!

*please ignore*