make menuconfig doesn't work (?)

[Henry Gilbert]

I've downloaded the source
and the tools necessary to recompile the kernel
that would be a way to get sound back

but on typing make mrproper 
make menuconfig I get a lot of errors

ending up with 
make[1]: *** [scripts/basic/fixdep] Error 1
make: *** [scripts_basic] Error 2

I was wondering what you guys do to compile the kernel

pls help.