F19 display weird

[Beartooth]

	On an old laptop (IBM-refurbished T30 Thinkpad), F18 had been 
running fine (using xfce) for months. I followed the directions at http://
fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp (except that I became root on gnome-
terminal, instead of using sudo).

	I ran 'yum update' and rebooted. I ran 'fedup-cli --network 19', 
but forgot to check the log. I chose System Upgrade from grub. When it 
finally finished, I ran 'yum update' just for lagniappe, and rebooted yet 
again.

	Then the weirdness hit, making the display all but useless for my 
ancient eyeballs: it looks as if a sheet of transparent deep red plastic 
were covering the screen. The boot messages are beyond my vision. (I 
tried to watch them.)

	I can just make out the splash screen, select xfce, and log in. 
Once I do, I can see the logo at bottom center, and the mouse cursor; 
moving that slowly across the top of the screen, with frequent pauses, 
got me once to a list of options starting with high contrast. I clicked 
that, but haven't been able to get back to it. Moving the cursor by about 
the width of any letter in the logo, and lingering longer than is 
normally necessary, seems to have been exhausted by that one use.

	I can ssh into the laptop from the machine I'm on now, and become 
root; but I'm running short on ideas. I did try this : 

[root at T30 ~]# startx
hostname: Name or service not known
xauth:  file /root/.serverauth.947 does not exist


X.Org X Server 1.14.3
Release Date: 2013-09-12
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System:  3.10.9-200.fc19.x86_64 
Current Operating System: Linux T30.localdomain 3.10.11-100.fc18.i686.PAE 
#1 SMP Mon Sep 9 13:40:50 UTC 2013 i686
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.10.11-100.fc18.i686.PAE root=/
dev/mapper/vg_t30-lv_root ro rd.md=0 rd.dm=0 KEYTABLE=us SYSFONT=True 
rd.lvm.lv=vg_t30/lv_swap rd.luks=0 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd.lvm.lv=vg_t30/
lv_root rhgb quiet
Build Date: 16 September 2013  12:43:28AM
Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.14.3-1.fc19 
Current version of pixman: 0.30.0
	Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
	to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
	(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.1.log", Time: Mon Sep 23 12:11:36 2013
(==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
setversion 1.4 failed
Initializing built-in extension Generic Event Extension
Initializing built-in extension SHAPE
Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension
Initializing built-in extension XTEST
Initializing built-in extension BIG-REQUESTS
Initializing built-in extension SYNC
Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD
Initializing built-in extension XC-MISC
Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA
Initializing built-in extension XFIXES
Initializing built-in extension RENDER
Initializing built-in extension RANDR
Initializing built-in extension COMPOSITE
Initializing built-in extension DAMAGE
Initializing built-in extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
Initializing built-in extension DOUBLE-BUFFER
Initializing built-in extension RECORD
Initializing built-in extension DPMS
Initializing built-in extension X-Resource
Initializing built-in extension XVideo
Initializing built-in extension XVideo-MotionCompensation
Initializing built-in extension SELinux
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-VidModeExtension
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DGA
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DRI
Initializing built-in extension DRI2
Loading extension GLX
(EE) 
Fatal server error:
(EE) xf86OpenConsole: VT_ACTIVATE failed: No such device or address
(EE) 
(EE) 
Please consult the Fedora Project support 
	 at http://wiki.x.org
 for help. 
(EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.1.log" for 
additional information.
(EE) 
(EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error
[root at T30 ~]# 

and this (both being over my head) :

[root at T30 ~]# xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1680 x 1050, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 connected primary 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y 
axis) 473mm x 296mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1600x1000      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1152x720       60.0  
   1024x768       75.1     60.0  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
[root at T30 ~]# 

	I hope all this layman-incomprehensible stuff means something to 
someone here.

	I have not yet tried to update grub, because of the weirdness. 

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Neo-Redneck Not Quite Clueless Power User
Remember I have precious (very precious!) little idea where up is.