Trying to install some ide raid drivers (to add some more hdds) and the instrcutions have toled me to modify some code in the kernel folder in usr/src (this is mandrake linux 9 btw). I need to then rebuild the kernel, how do I do this? Is there some file that I bring up for a whole c project (the kernel source code) so then I command it to compile? I am kinda new to Linux (but learning it well enough) so don't give me too much grief . I think I just need to run "Makefile" ...

Unfortunately there's a little bit more involved in recompiling a kernel. I've not recompile a linux kernel, I use FreeBSD, but you should have look here as well as here for some documentation.

Hope this helps.

First hint:
Read the file called README!
Run through it on a test machine before trying this with something important. It's very common to try to have to recompile several times before you get a good clean kernel the way you want it - if you really screw up, you can't boot the kernel at all (I once inadventantly left out support for my hard drive! Do'h!).

My favorite way is:
cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig
make dep
make bzImage
make modules
make modules_install
cp the kernel to it's final location, reconfigure LILO or GRUB or whatever, and reboot.

Make sure to leave a few hours open if this is a slower machine.