x server breakage?

[T Kellers]

sources cvsupped 2 hours ago.  make buildworld && make buildkernel && make 
installkernel went fine, as did mergemaster -p and mergemaster.

whn xdm tries to start, console message is /dev/tty8 repeating too fast.  
sleeping, retry in 30 seconds.  The message repeats over and over.

After disabling xdm in .etc.ttys, startx fails with "unable to open /dev/io."
(there is no io in /dev)

When I boot with /boot/kernel.old/kernel  (July 31st build) both xdm and the 
manual "startx" work fine.

Install is i386, Dell Optiplex PIII, xserver is x.org

Suggestions?

Tim Kellers
CPE/NJIT