I went to the XFree86 web site and downloaded the correct version of XFree86 4.3.0 and followed the install instructions to install it using the "sh Xinstall.sh" command. I answered yes to all the install script questions and performed the install exactly as the instructions asked.

Now when I boot up Linux, the GUI starts and I login. Everything looks normal except that there is no text under any of the icons. There is only an empty space where text should be...

Any idea how to get text to appear again? I can always revert to a backup but I was hoping to use the new version of XFree86... Aside from the partition backup, I also have a manual copy of the X related directories from the previous version of 4.1.0-25 which did work. I'd really like to get the new install of X working though.

Any wisdom for an Intel guy learning Linux?

Sylk

Sounds like a font probem... Which window manager are you using?

Couple things to try:

install freetype1.3 and 2.0

then run
fc-cache as root.

See watcha get.
Might wanna try fc-cache before you install anything else as well.
-Shade

I ran fc-cache without error but it didn't help.

I have both Gnome and KDE. Gnome is the one that lost test under the icons. KDE still works fine.