At some point in the Slackware installation, the installer asks which kernel you want to use. The third options is to use the one that you just install on the hard disk. Unfortunately, the default is the first option, copy the kernel from the disc.

I notice that if you pick the default option of copying the kernel from disk, your soundcard will not be automatically detected nor will usb modules (like usb core and usb storage) work on startup. This may explain why some folks have trouble with sound configuration and then the sound is automatically detected after a full reinstallation.

I'm not sure this is true- hotplug detects devices with the default kernel. If you are saying that there is a better choice, which one is it?

All the kernels Slackware offers are on the disc. I think maybe you mean the default is to use the one the installer boots with.

I have found that selecting the 2.6 kernel from the initial install menus caused a LOT of stuff to not work when I booted the system after the install.

I recommend that you select the normal bare.i or bareacpi.i kernel during the initial install. Then download and apply the patches from a Slackware mirror, and install the 2.6.13 kernel from /testing after the patches are installed. When 2.6.13 is working, I then download the current kernel (2.6.16.14 at this time) and compile it with my preferences (ACPI and reiserfs in the kernel, ALSA modules for my sound card as modules, all iptables options as modules, etc), and keep 2.6 13 as my backup kernel in case I do something stupid.

At this point I remove the 2.4 kernel stuff using pkgtool.

This has worked for me for countless Slackware installs with very few problems.

Bob