Basic Kernel upgrade question

[jmatus]

i've never upgraded a kernel b4. i'm following some directions in a RHCE book i'm reading....
i'm currently runniing 2.4.18-14. i downloaded 2.4.20.tar.gz
i created a directory linux-2.4.20 and extracted the tar to this directory.
i deleted the symbolic link to the 2.4.18-14 and created a new one to the *.20 with:
ln -s linux-2.4.20 linux-2.4

now, my expectation was that once this was done that i could reboot and the splash screen would read that it was the 2.4.20 kernel but no luck. what am i not doing right?

TIA

[ph34r]

You need to configure and compile it. Unless you are using a RH supplied kernel, in which case you'll need to install the kernel RPMs. Also, don't forget to update your bootloader.

[jmatus]

ok, apparently the book was missing all-kinds-of steps. i followed the directions in the knowledge-base here, but once i've rebooted my computer and choose the new kernel from grub i get the "error 19: linux kernel must be loaded b4 initrd...press any key to continue."
i edited my grub.conf to list the new kernel with the following:

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.19)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20 ro root=/dev/hda2 hdd=ide-scsi

i left in the reference to the .18-14 kernel.

any ideas?