I am having some problems with a Slackware install, and here is what I think the problem is.

This motherboard has an nvidia nforce 2 chipset. When the install cd boots up, the keyboard works fine, once the system is left to boot up on its own devices, the keyboard, mouse (gpm is enabled, and it doesn't move at the console), don't work.

They are both just regular ps/2 devices, and I think slackware not having that chipset driver loaded is one of the only excuses I can think of as to why it wouldn't work. Now I have another machine I can download that chipset from, but how do I get the machine to boot to install it, without a keyboard or mouse to begin with?

Just an idea, is the automatic switch to keynum led enabled in your bios ?
That bios feature bugs my ps/2 keyboard when I use it

I will get back on the machine later this evening and take a look at the NUM lock setting. Provided that it doesn'twork, what is next?

The nforce 2 chipset controls both of the ps/2 ports, doesn't it? How then could I install the driver from nvidia's website?

Could I download it, boot up off of SLAX (or something similar), then chroot into my home system and fix it? Is that even possible?

Kernel 2.6 provides a Nvidia2 chipset driver for IDE and AGP (I don't know for 2.4)

I don't think Nvidia2 chipset controls the PS/2 port, what is your motherboard model ?

It is one of Shuttle's mainboards. FN-45 is the name, I believe. Does that help?

A link would help, but in order to fix your problem, something has to be done
with your gpm setting for sure

Is there any output with :
cat /var/log/messages | grep gpm

The keyboard doesn't work? Is there a different way to do some input that I don't know about?

Lol, ok I did not notice that you could not use your keyboard, my bad...

- disable the keynum in Bios
- if it continue to fails, boot from second slackware cd, login as root,
mount /dev/<root partition> /mnt/hd
chroot /mnt/hd
chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm

Then reboot in HD, see if disable gpm fix your problem

That was it. The numlock was not set, but the chmod -x on the gpm did it.

Now when I start X, neither the keyboard nor the mouse work. I have to just adjust the xorg.conf, and I will post it when it gets done right.

All I had to do was change the device section of xorg.conf from:
dev/mouse to /dev/input/mice