trying to install a module

[Brian Kelsay]

I'm trying to build a module to install on a freshly loaded RedHat 9 
system.  The video for linux (v4l2) has to be built first and then the 
BrookTree (bttv) module must be built for using a video capture card. 
Anyway, when I try to run a make on the modules source I get an error 
and a message that my kernel is not enabled for modules.  That is BS, 
because I can run lsmod and see the currently loaded modules and rmmod 
and remove a module that I'm not going to need.  So what's up?

At the v4l site (http://bytesex.org/v4l/build.html) I see this message:

If you run in trouble with the distribution kernel, try a vanilla kernel 
from kernel.org instead. The RH9 kernel for example doesn't work without 
some tweaks in the drivers source code because they backported lot of 
stuff from 2.5.x and broke source level compatibility with vanilla 2.4.x 
kernels.

To me this just doesn't sound right.  Is it possible that RedHat was 
trying to gain some functionality in the 2.5 kernel and that is what 
broke it for this module?  I guess I don't really understand what I'm 
reading.

Brian