F16 failure to completely boot - hangs at 'Started Display Manager'

[Bill Davidsen]

Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
>
> n 03/11/2012 11:19 AM, Gregory P. Ennis wrote:
>> Starting Display Manager.....
>> Started Display Manger
>
> I had that problem on this box after an "upgrade" to F16 went sour.  Try
> booting into runlevel 3, or whatever it's called now, log into a CLI as
> root and try this:
>
> yum reinstall gdm
>
> and reboot.  In my case, a database had gone away and the reinstall
> restored it.
>
> Joe,
>
> I finally stumbled on a technique that allowed me to boot bu just
> deleting the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.  Only problem I had as a result is
> that I can not get the gnome3 interface, when I log in it switches to
> the fallback of gnome2.
>
> Your idea of using reinstall seemed intriguing. I tried to reinstall
> gnome-shell* but that did not bring any success either.
>
> I had such difficulty adjusting to gnome3 when it came out, I have been
> a little surprised by my attitude of missing the gnome3 interface now.
>
> If you have any other suggestions I would appreciate some help.
>
If you miss gnome-shell you definitely _need_ help!  ;-)

Seriously, most of the time the fallback means that the video drivers are not 
sexy enough for the garbage special effects GNOME3 adds to impress game players. 
Did you by any chance have a 3rd party (aka working) video driver installed, 
such as from another repo like rpmfusion? If so, there may have been an updated 
kernel in your "failed update" and your kmod-whatever is unable to update.

I highly suggest running updates under some simple window manager, so that if 
your video hardware breaks due to use of a vendor driver or just a bug in a 
kernel driver you will still be functional.

And hint about gnome-shell, everything is better with a touch of cinnamon, YMMV.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot