Here's what happened. I downloaded a new kernel from kernel.org and compiled it using instructions from a number of posts here. Things went fine. I could boot up and things were behaving as I thought they should be. But I have one minor problem, I can't play audio cds. I am running slackware 10 with dropline installed. I upgraded to kernel 2.6.8.1. Now when I try and open cd player from gnome (under Applications -> Multimedia) I get a "Drive Open" error every time. It doesn't matter whether I am root or user. Also when I reboot into my old kernel, CD Player works fine. I used the old .config file as a starting place. Any ideas of what I did wrong? As a side note, dmesg gives no errors relating to the DVD drive I am trying to use and I can mount data cds with no problem. It is only audio cds I can't play. I also tried xmms, but I don't know if that can play audio cds or just mp3s.

I don't know if this is related, but see the note about a 2.6.8-1 kernel bug here:

http://www.loria.fr/~thome/d600/

It's been causing my CD/RW to not work, as well.