xorg-x11 update may have broken my system

[Jim Cornette]

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
>
>  
>
It seems it would be easier to press any key to display the grub menu, 
then press a to edit your selected boot entry. Remove the entry which 
references rhgb quiet and enter a space followed by the number 3 to 
allow you to boot into level 3. In level 3, enter your user name and 
password. Try typing startx at the command prompt. (regular user). If 
you still have a problem with X starting, backtracking X is probably 
needed. If X still shows problems, then ctl-alt-backspace to kill X.
This will let you know if X is broken when loaded in runlevel 5 and also 
in runlevel 3. There are differences between the way X is launched from 
each level, though I do not know the specifics.
Now, open a root terminal on another tty and supply the root  username 
and password. Put your DVD in the drive and then mount the dvd from 
commandline. Usually something like mount /media/cdrecorder works. Your 
system might be different.
change to the directory where you have the rpms on the DVD.
run rpm -Uvh xorg-x11*.<arch>.rpm  --oldpackage within the directory 
that contains the xorg rpms. Xorg should be rollde back to the later 
version.
Ideally rpm -Fvh xorg-x11*.<arch>.rpm --oldpackage would be ideal, but 
did not work the last time that I tried it out.

Before you get too far back with backtracking xorg-x11, it would be 
helpful to know what type of video card you are using and if you are 
using stock or third party drivers for X. This version of X was released 
for security reasons and it would be wise to be able to use a more 
protected version of X.

Good luck,
Jim

-- 
QOTD:
	If it's too loud, you're too old.