Tony

An explanation of the error you are getting: the new PPP code tries to grab a pty master slave pair in order to set it to the ppp line discipline (earlier they simply opened the serial device and used to set that to the ppp ldisc).

The "get_pty()" function in PPP code tries to get a pty pair by opening /dev/ptmx (the Unix 98 PTY style), failing which it scans through the pty name space (/dev/pty???), etc.

The missing "devpts" file-system and the missing old style pty devices in /dev should be the reason for your current error message, most likely.

Creating /dev/ptyp0 { major 2, minor 0 } indeed creates a master pty, which pppd should pick up correctly. You also need a corresponding slave pty, which will be /dev/ttyp0 { major 3, minor 0 }. Create the slave and see if pppd stops complaining.

Regards
Amit