I recently brought up my first Slackware 8.1 box. Applause. I know right off the bat from experience with RedHat that I should compile my own, OPTIMIZED for my computer, kernel. In the past when I tried to compile for RedHat I could never do it. I had to eventually get a basic .confg file and work from there because of me not knowing what to include so RedHat would work. Is this the same sort of situation? Should I get a basic working .config file and then edit out the stuff I know I don't need like Amateur radio and Firewire. Is Slack the distro that stores a copy of the .config file in /etc/ or something close to that. Many questions so little time.

--tarballedtux

If you installed from the 8.1 ISO install CD. It has a directory for called "kernels." It contains all the stock kernel images, the System map file, and the config file. Most use the bare.i kernel, but if you used other then look for it there. It should provide with the starting place that you should be able to rebuild or reinstall the kernel that you have now.

Slack 8.1 stores the image and System.map in the /boot directory. Lilo.conf is in /etc.

Good luck.