I had some problems, when I followed your short description… it does not tell you what other packages you need to do the trick…

According to http://newbiedoc.sourceforg… you also need:
1. gcc
2. kernel-package
3. kernel-source-2.4.18 (or whatever kernel sources you will be using)
4. libc6-dev
5. tk8.0 or tk8.1 or tk8.3
6. libncurses5-dev
7. fakeroot
8. bin86 (for building 2.2.x kernels on PCs)

Without these packages, make-dpkp stops during execution… it took me some time to figure out what was wrong 🙁