Fedora Issues

[Ed]

I don't post often so bear with me.

I am having serious problems with Fedora (every version, but now
Beta3).  I just did a clean install of beta3 because I wanted a clean
system.

1. up2date just didn't work.  I gave up and tried yum.
2. yum didn't work, ran for hours and kept popping up warnings about bad
rpms.
3. Grabbed apt from freshrpms and now I can at least install packages. 
(Fedora apt in beta2 was a massive headache too).

I can live with package management now, but the thing that is killing me
is that I can't compile a kernel-- ANY kernel.  Using gcc32, default
configs from /configs directory, smp kernel, vanilla kernel from
kernel.org, nothing will compile.  Everything fails with segmentation
faults or other problems.  Has anyone compiled a stock RedHat kernel or
vanilla kernel? How did RedHat compile them in the first place to create
the binary RPMs?

Other problems with beta3:  
- X randomly locks up when screensaver kicks in.  I have to reboot. 
- Fedora just drops my USB mouse for the heck of it on reboots (though
it is plugged in).  Always worked in RH9.

What I really need is the ability to compile a kernel.  Anyone been able
to do that?  Advice would be greatly appreciated.

--

Edward Simmonds    RHCE, OCP