Thanks everyone, the hints led me to to the following..
The dev/null device was being replaced by a dev/null file. It seemed to
have something to do with the dialer program. I decided that THAT
should not happen if the distribution was set up right.
SO I went to see what updates were available, (with the Suse Online
update) sure enough, their was one where the Dial-up can upset the
Dev/null File.
I said to go for it, and YAST spent the afternoon, evening and for all I
know MOST of the night downloading and installing patches. The system
seems to not even use the 33K of bandwidth available on my dial-up
connection.
Looking this morning /dev/null is back as of about 2:30 this morning - I
guess that is when the patch was run. and hopefully some of the other
glitches I have been experiencing may be over. (IF I can re-boot)
THANKS ALL FOR THE HINTS
--
Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario
cmacd [ at ] TelecomOttawa [ dot ] net Just Beyond the Fringe
http://www.TelecomOttawa.net/~cmacd/
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