rpm's or source?

[elam]

I am trying to upgrade to the 2.4 kernel. After reading the changes documentation, I downloaded the necessary software that I needed to compile the new kernel(PPP, e2fsprogs etc.). Most of these(if not all) are in RPM format. A friend told me that I have to compile and use the sources for these programs or else it won't work. Is this true? What's the difference between the RPM's and sources anyway?
elam

[pbharris]

rpms are precompiled binaries and source is nice code which you can type make to make binaries.

personally i always like source for the kernel, besure to read the kernel how-to.