Re: help... X-Server crashed after update

[Laszlo Acs <laszlo@lanscape.net>]

Sorry it took so long to get back to this issue...  I'm still
working on it and haven't resorted to killing the machine and  going
back to square one with a re-install (which would be when I am ready to
throw in the towel, and I'm not there yet).

I made a backup image of the primary HDA1 system drive; so I should be
able to restore it to a different drive if I need to.

I added comments in the thread below:

At 02:53 AM 4/17/2009 -0400, you wrote:
> Laszlo Acs wrote:
> > Sure seems to be alot of empty font
> > dirs...  and, not only that...  all 100dpi and 75dpi font sets
> > are empty AFTER reinstall!???!!!
>
> Yup, something is definitely up.  Do a "dpkg --listfiles
> xfonts-75dpi" and see if the font files are in the package, and then
> a "ls /usr/share/fonts/X11/{75,100}dpi" to see if they actually
> got on the system.

When I examine the various folders in /usr/share/fonts/X11/{75,100}dpi -
there are 366 gz'd font files having a date of 10/24/2007.  The dpkg
--listfiles matches the files in the directories...

> Don't want to be insulting, but...
> you did check that you're not out of disk space?  Just a
> thought.

when I run "$ df /", I get:

Filesystem     1k-blocks      Used      Available          Use%   Mounted on
/dev/hda1       18421552     6007020     11478748       35%     /
varrun        1038224       140  1038084            1%     /var/run
varlock         1038224         4        1038220            1%     /var/lock
udev                1038224         116  1038108            1%     /dev
devshm           1038224           0      1038224        0%     /dev/shm
lrm              1038224       18856      1019368        2%     /lib/modules/2.6.15-53-386/volatile
/dev/md2       576917472   422406064    125205684       78%     /data

Seems like I should have plenty of system diskspace with only 35%
of the primary in use...  (the 78% usage is on the non-boot RAID -
this fluctuates on average of 70%-to-80% regularly based on internal
processes - so the value is within my norms)


> > so,
> > just for grins, I try
> >   $ startx
> > and crash with the same errors - same missing "fixed" 
> > font
> > Then, I looked up the 'xorg ati' driver Jeff suggested I try...  and
> > found it's embedded within the xserver-xorg-video-ati and
> > xserver-xorg-driver-ati packages.  So...
>
> If you're getting to the message about fonts, chances are that X is
> finding *some* kind of driver.  It should report which driver in the
> Xorg log.  The proprietary X driver is "fglrx", and the
> free drivers are "ati", "r128", or
> "radeon".

I am running the free "radeon" driver.

> My guess is that you need to fix
> the font issue first.

OK...  so, if I seem to already have the fonts in the
/usr/share/fonts/X11/{75,100}dpi dirs, why is the XServer not registering
its presence?

Anyway, I decided to try using the old aptitude quasi-GUI tool - and it
shows that there are 2 broken packages.  I do the CTRL-T and
navigate to the resolver to do an "Examine" - and it shows that
xfonts-encodings is scheduled for deletion and breaks xfonts-utils and
another conf file.  I undid that and now nothing shows up as broken
- but still I have a broken X ("startx" still can't find
"fixed" font).  

I bet there's something simple I'm not seeing and am getting confused by
things that aren't 'really' broken but just are appearing to be. 
For example, when I reboot and CTRL-F1 to a TTY screen, then login - I
get a message "configuration error - unknown item 'FAIL_DELAY'
(notify administrator)" - I yell at my screen that I am the freaking
administrator but it doesn't care...  so I type in my password and
move on...  but, again, I don't know what else I should be trying
now.

Laz