Problems with recompiled kernel

Merry Christmas :)

I'm relatively new to Linux (had Knoppix 3.6 installed for about a month). I decided to have a go at recompiling the 2.6.7 kernel, to try and make ACPI work better, to add APM support, and to make ALSA work.

So I have tried recently to do this. It has sort of woked. That is, it doesn't give any compile errors. But sometimes there are problems with booting the kernel. When I select it from LILO, it gives an error: 'EBDA is big, kernel stack overlaps lilo second stage'. I found this is aparently because I didn't run lilo in bash before I booted my new kernel. So I ran it, but it gave my an error, that it couldn't find the initrd for 2.6 kernel. Upon further investigation, I found this is because when I install the new kernel, it deletes the initrd for the kernel it is replacing.

If it does boot, then I still get an error in the Power Management module of the control center, complaing my kernel has a partial ACPI installation. 'APM --suspend' still complains about no APM support in kernel. And most importantly, ALSA doesn't seem to work. When I boot from it, it says something about /dev/dsp not existing, and that the sound server will continue with the null output device. Running 'alsaconf' in bash doesn't work, as it says the command is not found.

I have a Toshiba Tecra S1. I have heard ACPI has some trouble with this model.

Regards.

acpi and apm is an either/or situation.You'll have problems
if you try to run both.
Did you recompile your kernel the "debian way"?
You can test a new kernel without installing it.
I'd suggest some more research.
At google
"recompile kernel"
"compile kernel" + knoppix
"compile kernel" + "debian way"