Here are the steps:
1. Get the latest kernel from the www.kernel.org
2. Untar the kernel into /usr/src/
tar xvfj linux2.6.26.tar.bz2 -C /usr/src/
This will create a directory /usr/src/linux2.6.26/ and untar the linux kernel into this directory.
3. Goto the kernel $TOPDIR
$cd /usr/src/linux2.6.26/
4. make menuconfig
