X config damaged by power failure

[Todd Denniston]

Patrick O'Callaghan wrote, On 04/30/2008 03:32 PM:
> On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 16:16 +0000, g wrote:
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>> of times that i have lost a file from power loss or lockup and hard reset, was
>> because it was open. i would not think that x11 would hold a config file open
>> when it only needs to read it. then again.
>>
>> had you made any changes to your x11 setup you should have at least had .old
>> file.
> 
> I didn't have a previous xorg.conf file. That's the whole issue: X
> worked perfectly well without it, until the power fail, then it didn't
> work (until I ran system-config-display and created an xorg.conf file).
> 

Unless the video equipment (card and monitor) have lost their minds, then the 
xorg.conf probably still should not be needed.
BTW to answer your earlier question, xorg can ask the card and monitor what 
they support (assuming they are new enough), and this is why xorg.conf is not 
needed IF you don't want to tweak the system to use less than the maximum 
capability that the combination of the monitory and card support.

Does gdm come up and display correctly?
if so I would suspect one of those Desktop Environments is tweaking with the 
settings, and try creating a fresh new user and login as that user and see if 
everything is OK.

On the UPS front, I would suggest checking[1] to see if some of the plugs on 
the UPS are NOT battery backed and if the computer CPU happens to be plugged 
into one of those. BTW I hope that printer is an inkjet...A laser on an UPS 
will likely kill(destroy) the UPS's battery.


[1] I know this is obvious, but I have missed it in the past.
-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter