Kernel upgrade questions....

[Charles Malespin]

Hi all, I want to upgrade/change my kernel and I have a few noobie
questions about this.  First when I went to synaptic I noticed that I
had the 386 package installed, but that the 686 is for P4(which I have
with 1Gb ram).  Should I be using the 686 kernel from now on?  Secondly,
I have seen talk on here about the 2.6.11 kernel, but for me it just has
the 2.6.10-5 kernel option.  Why is this?  If I upgrade or change to the
686 kernel, what kind of changes am I going to have to make on my system
afterwards, ie driver changes, reconfiguring things, etc.?  Sorry for
all the questions, its just that I have seen alot of posts here about
people's computers getting screwed up because of kernel upgrades, and I
dont have the experience to fix a major problem if one comes up....
Anyway, any help is appreciated!
Charles