Hi again,
OK, I sup'ed again, and almost got the kernel built.  It looks like it 
gets to the end, where it's linking the kernel.  When it does this, I get 
a whole lot of:
init_sysent.o:  Undefined symbol 'blah blah' referenced from data segment 
messages.  Interestingly, all the symbols start with "_compat_43" or 
"_compat_09", so should I try again with those options commented out 
of the kernel config file??  I would think, though, that I'd like to 
keep those options.  Anyway, those are followed by:

tty.o: Undefined symbol `_ttcompat' referenced from text segment

...at which time the build stops.

Any clues?  I think I'm *really* close now!!
Also, somebody mentioned something about some 1.1A binaries "breaking" 
when you run them under 1.2A, or something like that?  Actually, I guess 
it wasn't any binary specifically named, but someone said NFS breaks?  
This is critical for me, because I NFS mount my source tree.
So I need to be able to mount /usr/src after rebooting with the 1.2 
kernel so I can build the rest of the OS.  Any pointers/help on this?

thanks a ton!!
Jonathan