I did read some of the other posts but they don't seem to apply to me.

I don't know what I did, but suddenly my computer started acting really strangley. Everytime I tried to open a command shell (KDE), it would flicker and drop away.

I rebooted my computer and suddenly all it would say is:

unable to open an initial console

I'm assuming that is what was flickering on the ones I was trying to open before...

Any ideas, I was just going to reinstall, but I can't even boot to CD anymore (lnx-bbc...yes, slackware cd...no).

And I thought I had problems before...

Do you boot straight into your window manager or to the console?

but it sounds like you denied permissions to yourself to /dev or something in /dev or a lot is missing in /dev

are you using devfs? If so did you change something in /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modules.devfs?

did you recompile your kernel and remove anything about devpts or devfs?

what did you do?

i have no idea what lnx-bbc...yes, slackware cd...no means ... need more info

Alright...

I did modify something in /etc/modules.conf just before stuff started going wonky.

I am using devfs and was mucking around in /etc and /dev when the problem occured.

I did not recompile the kernel.

I cannot boot from the slackware bootable CDs. LNX-BBC is a bootable cd that I carry with me everywhere (Stands for Linux - Bootable Business Card). I can boot from the lnx-bbc cd.

/etc/modules.conf and /etc/modules.devfs are the files you configure to change permissions and files for devfs if you remove stuff from those or add stuff when the pc sets up its /dev directory it will either not create the device file or it will create the device file, in other words the device files are not there till they get setup. You probably commented out something about old pty names? And maybe commented or changed something about your sound card you need to get the backup files or change them back.