Well, I was using a chrooted environment with some bind mounts to /dev and other places, and realized that some of the builds I had done still pointed outside the chrooted environment, and the images won't run becuase they are linked wrong. I decided to wipe it all and start over. So, as root, I started deleting the stuff out of the chrooted environment (needed to be root for some of the stuff, doncha know). Anyway, I deleted some of the chrooted stuff, among it /dev, when suddenly (a little later) realized that I still had bound mounts! So, I wiped my REAL /dev. Well, I used mount to tell me what was still mounted, umounted and deleted the rest of the stuff. Holding my breath, I rebooted. Of course, now my machine won't boot, right? Right. It gets as far as "Nash starting" and then hangs. What to do? Well, I boot a rescue disc, and copy off what was the original real / onto another disc, and then start to ponder. I need help! Using the LiveCD rescue disc, I created me another user with my name, and uid and group and gid, and point the home directory to the mounted disc which contains it in the live environment. Ok, su - jmccarty now works, I'm logged in as me (sorta) and I can access my files and my PATH is set correctly to my local ~/bin so I can run my mailer, and ask for help here. NOPE! Thunderbird can't open the display for some reason. Hmm. This environment thinks it has enough devices to run. Hmm. # cd /media/hda5 # mv dev dev_save # rsync -a /dev . # shutdown -r now System now boots and runs. Mailer works fine. Phew! Dodged a bullet! Anything else I need to do? Mike -- p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);} Oppose globalization and One World Governments like the UN. This message made from 100% recycled bits. You have found the bank of Larn. I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!