Windows and Linux Dual Boot Part 2: I Broke It

So I got my Windows/Linux dual boot up and running, finally, and I've already managed to break it. I guess this is to be expected as I really have no clue what I'm doing. And maybe it's even good, as I can certainly learn a lot from breaking and fixing a system. In any case, here's what's happened:
• Booted into my nice clean FC3 install, with all the latest updates installed via up2date.
• up2date alerted me that there were some new updates.
• Looked at said updates. One was for the kernel.
• Decided to apply said updates.
• Ooops! The new kernel causes kernel panics at boot.
• No problem, just boot into the old kernel. I love that!
• Then decided to uninstall the new, broken kernel using yum.
• Ooops again. The uninstall appeared to work, but from what I can tell it took with it everything it saw as dependent on the new kernel, including all my window managers (like KDE and Gnome -- essentially, all that GUI jazz), and god knows what else.
• Now I'm stuck in what seems to me like X (but I don't really know) and have nothing but a Terminal and a clock. Drat!
• I'm seriously considering reinstalling FC3 at this point. I know if I did I'd do things differntly thatn I did the first time, so it might not be such a bad idea. But it takes forever, so first I'd like to see if I can learn how to recover from this.

So that's where I'm at with Linux.

Fun.

Windows and Linux Dual Boot Part 1: Install

Just wanted to log my first experiences building both Windows and Linux on a single machine. (Actually, I used two machines, but each had both operating systems. One was too slow, so I've moved to a slightly less-slow machine.)

• First try was building on an old, incredibly slow Dell box.
• Successfully installed Windows XP Professional on the first partition.
• Got Windows authenticating and doing roaming profiles from a Mac Server.
• Installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 on the second partition.
• Realized I didn't have enough RAM to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, and couldn't get the NIC working. (Related problems?)
• Moved up to a generic GCS box with more RAM.
• Reinstalled Windows XP Pro. Good.
• Decided to go with Fedora Core 3 this time.
• Downloaded and checksummed FC3, and burnt to CD.
• Checked FC3 media. All good.
• Partitioned and Installed FC3 on the new box. Installed as much software as I thought I'd need/want/be able to get away with. This was trial and error as I've never done this before.
• Booted into FC3 and went to up2date. up2date complained about not having enough free space on the drive.
• Turned out OpenOffice, with all languages, installed straight from the FC3 CD, was hogging all my disk space. It was about 1GB. (Again, I'm new here.)
• Removed OpenOffice (I'm told I can install it from the download, sans languages, and it will be more like 100 MB.)
• Retried up2date. First try got an error message that I'd been disconnected. Second try worked! All up to date now.

I'm tired now, and am taking a break from non-Mac systems for a bit. I'll post more when I get back into it, either in this post, or in another. I haven't decided yet.

UPDATE:
Logged in to my Linux partition today, and up2date told to me there were new updates. (Just like on the Mac!) Ran the updater. Couple little things and a kernel update. Installed the updates, rebooted. Bam! Kernel panic! (Just like on the Mac.) Weird thing was, I rebooted and, at the boot prompt I had my choice of kernels to boot. Choosing the old kernel lets me boot the system. Choosing the new kernel gives me kernel panics every time.

So now what?