Building from source was the fun part when I first got into Linux. Trying to get the modules down to the smallest subset possible that would run on my machine just to see how fast I could get it to boot.

Tricky part was it was a dual boot Windows installation on a single hard drive, I was always worried I would screw something up that I couldn't recover from since I needed the computer for school. Somehow I didn't mess up anything I couldn't recover from.