>/etc/dev ??? You should have a /dev, but that's it.

I can't find the text I got the instructions from (it was some netBSD file,
but PC and oldish), but I may well have made a mistake.
I know when I first tried MAKEDEV tty, I got "Command not found" so I
thought if I gave the path to where I'd seen MAKEDEV it might run. It
seemed to run, and then all the troubles started !

 I'm unsure
>what you did to, "set up all the terminals in /etc/dev", and I'm concerned
>that you might have damaged some file.

I was under the impression that MAKEDEV set up the terminals. I'm pretty
sure that I _have_ damaged something, as the system still won't recognise
my username or root, either logging in via Telnet or from the computer
itself. I can get in by single user mode, so all is not completely lost,
but I think I may need to reinstall in the near future ! I need to do quite
a lot more crawling before I walk !

Just in case these ring any bells, a few symptoms I've noticed:
I get "incorrect login" for my username _and_ root.
When in as a single user I can su to my username. No password is required,
but maybe thats normal when you're in as root ? When I "pwd" after su'ing,
I find I'm in the /etc directory.
When I use "more" I get the first screenful, but no more. The prompt returns.

>Chances are that you need to enable the getty process on tty00 (modem) or
>tty01 (printer). Not having it on usually causes the problem you see -
>everything just stops on the serial console after boot.

When I get things back to normal, I'll see if I can work out how to do this !

Thanks!

Paul