xorg-x11 update may have broken my system

[Ted Kaczmarek]

On Sat, 2005-09-17 at 14:25 +0200, Francois Massonneau wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This morning, yum updated automatically my system, and I saw it updated the 
> Xorg-X11 packages.
> I shut down my computer without any pb, and this afternoon, I 've tried to 
> start my linux box, and it doesn't want ;-(
> 
> It can boot using the FC4 install DVD rom, in rescue mode, but I can't make it 
> to work using the usual boot process.
> 
> Grub comes fine, it begins to boot, the partitions are mounted, but when it 
> wants to display the little windows (now the boot process is graphical) that 
> shows the boot process, I have a fully colored screen, and nothing happen. I 
> have to power it off to shut it down.
> 
> As only the xorg-x11 packages were updated, I suppose, this comes from them.
> 
> Now I would like to be able to downgrade them, but I don't know how.
> 
> I can boot from the install dvd, and boot in rescue mode, then 
> chroot /mnt/sysimage, but once there, what can I do ?
> I have another computer where I can burn a dvd with the previous xorg-x11 
> packages, but I don't know how to mount that dvd when I'm in rescue mode.
> A "dmesg | grep hd" shows me that my dvd burner is "hdc", but when I type : 
> mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc /media/cdrecorder, I have always the same message : 
> "/dev/hdc doesn't exist", or something similar.
> 
> Thank you for your help
> Francois

ctl-alt-backspace  should allow you to kill the xserver, and booting
into init 3 and starting X manually manually may also be helpful.
Once X is down, check the log files, you may also want to kill all
instances of gdm or whatever diplay manager you are using. 

Since X appears to have started maybe you are just having a display
manager issue.

You can't assume the upgrade is the problem unless you did absolutely
nothing on the machine between the two reboots, odds are you did :-)


Regards,
Ted