Bad update - X11 corrupted - dependency hell

[Dick Brown]

Martin,
    You were right, and the XFree86-xfs wasn't there.  I got the rpm 
that you mentioned, but when I tried to install it, I got the message that:
/usr/X11R6/bin/mkfontdir was missing.  Is this just a directory that I 
can create, so that everything will be OK, or do you think that there's 
another package that I need to install first?

Thanks for your help,
Dick

Martin Stone wrote:

> Dick,
>
> That's a good start.  One item of concern:  You say that when you ran 
> X -probeonly, your screen blanked.  Do you mean it blanked and stayed 
> blank?  That would be bad.  It's supposed to blank your screen for a 
> few seconds, then you get back your text console with the latest error 
> messages displayed on it.
>
> So... we've determined that X doesn't think it has the fonts it 
> needs... this could be because xfs just is not running, but I think 
> it's more likely that xfs was the package that failed installation.  
> Can you do the following:
>
> rpm -qa | grep '^XF' | sort
>
> and post the output to us?  You should see XFree86-xfs-4.3.0-42 in the 
> list towards the bottom.  If you don't, that could be your trouble.  
> You might try something like:
>
> wget 
> http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/XFree86-xfs-4.3.0-42.i386.rpm 
>
>
> (or download the RPM to your system in your favorite way)
>
> and then:
>
> rpm -ivh XFree86-xfs-4.3.0-42.i386.rpm
> chkconfig --level 2345 xfs on
> service xfs start
>
> Then try starting X and logging all messages on your own with 
> something like:
>
> X > /tmp/myXlog.txt 2>&1
>
> And let us know how that works out for you...
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
>
>
> Dick Brown wrote:
>
>> OK, there was no 'rhgb' in my boot loader, so I got in and manually 
>> changed /etc/inittab.
>>
>> The command 'X -probeonly' didn't seem to do anything helpful.  I saw 
>> some text flash on the screen, but then the screen blanked.  I 
>> checked the log file, but no help there.  I went ahead and just ran 
>> 'X' and again checked the log file.  I saw the following messages 
>> near the bottom:
>>
>>  could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list
>>  fatal server error:  could not open default font 'fixed'
>>
>> Dick
>>
>> Martin Stone wrote:
>>
>>> Dick,
>>>
>>> Here's a way to boot from the hard disk and skip the graphical stuff:
>>>
>>> When the GRUB bootloader screen comes up, hit the 'a' key - this 
>>> allows you to modify the kernel parameters that are being used to 
>>> boot your system.  Backspace over 'rhgb' to remove it, then type '3' 
>>> (without the quotes) and hit Enter. This tells the Linux kernel to 
>>> boot to runlevel 3 instead of what is specified in /etc/inittab 
>>> (that would be '5' in your case.)  Runlevel 3 is the normal runlevel 
>>> with all normal services running except for X.  Much easier to 
>>> troubleshoot your system from this point than from a rescue disk.
>>>
>>> After you've booted to runlevel 3, you can log in normally and try 
>>> to diagnose your X problem.  I recommend starting by trying:
>>>
>>> X -probeonly
>>>
>>> and seeing (and telling us!) what error messages are reported.
>>>
>>> Good luck!
>>> Martin
>>>
>>>
>>> Dick Brown wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks to those who have replied so far.
>>>>
>>>> I did make a boot disk, and can get to a system prompt with "linux 
>>>> single".  The problem I'm having is that I can't get a graphical 
>>>> login.  When the login prompt comes up, the system automatically 
>>>> tries to go to the graphical login.  Unfortunately, it can't get 
>>>> there, so keeps cycling from text login to graphical login and 
>>>> back, so I can't do anything.
>>>>
>>>> There was one other thing I tried, and maybe this was bad.  When I 
>>>> couldn't log in normally after the failed update, I tried 
>>>> reinstalling Fedora over itself.  It seemed to go fine installing 
>>>> over RH8, so I figured it would be okay to install over itself, 
>>>> too.  Would this have messed it up?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Dick
>>>>
>>>> jludwig wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>    I recently decided to upgrade from RH8 to Fedora.  I downloaded
>>>>>> the .iso files, burned them and installed without a hitch 
>>>>>> (checked the md5sum and the finished CDs first).
>>>>>>    Unfortunately, when I performed the system update, the X11 
>>>>>> package
>>>>>> was corrupted.  Now I can't boot into Fedora normally.  I can get 
>>>>>> in through the "Linux rescue" from the install disk, but I'm 
>>>>>> afraid I
>>>>>> don't know what to do from there.  I'm at that dangerous stage 
>>>>>> where I know enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to 
>>>>>> get myself out,
>>>>>> so I don't really want to touch anything without some advice 
>>>>>> first.  Is there an easy fix to this?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Dick
>>>>>>   
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What were the error messages, if any, while booting?
>>>>> This will give me/us an idea how to help you fix this problem.
>>>>> jludwig <wralphie at comcast.net>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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