Ok,, just installed Fedora Core 2 kernel 2.6.3-2.1.253.2.1 on monday , and now I'm getting better at this terminal thing. on Tuesday afternoon I began the Up2date program, with all 406 updates it needed to run all night even though I have a 3meg dwnld speed. (hmmmm)

Here's the problem and what I know about it.

During boot after the upgrades installed , the X server was about to kick on and I get a sign that says a little something like, "Cannot start X server would you like to view the server output to diagnose?" selecting the Yes key gives me another larger blue screen filled with nothing. screen changes to "Disabled for now, restart GDM when configured".

I took the liberty of searching the forums for duplicats of this problem and I couldn't find much however, I did locate the /usr/X11R6/bin directory and the startx file. when I pull the startx file I get this error messge...

<<<

Xinit: no such file or directory (errno2)

Use the -- option, or makesure that /usr/X11R6/bin is in your path and that "X" is a program or a link to the right type of server for your display. Possible server names include.

XFree86 XFree86 displays

giving up
Xinit: no such file or directory (errno 2) Unable to connect to "X" server.
Xinit: no such process (errno 3) server error

>>>

One thing did catch my eye was the "big freaking blinking Red X" in the file list. now I've never personally seen anything like this in a dos format so I ran File X command and got this.

X: broken symbolic link to "XFree86"

Now I dont think it has much to do with my video card because the install with out upgrades worked fine, it also worked on redhat9. So it would be a bit troubling to find a downgrade. now I dont know much about the linux/unix terminal system so how can I re-install XFree86 ? or should I just re-install the whole thing? any ideas?

PS does anyone know about a simpler smaller less graphically intense, version of Xfree86. I'm runnin a dinky amd400 and Yes Gentelmen SIZE DOES MATTER.

as for X, I think FC2 uses x.org so the link shoud be to Xorg. See if there is a file called Xorg in /usr/X11R6/bin. If there is, go into the directory /usr/X11R6/bin (if you're not alrady there), become root with su and then remove X with
rm X
And then do
ln -s Xorg X

Revert to a normal user with exit and then try startx again.

As for smaller X, you're probably looking for a lighter desktop environment/window manager. Both kde and gnome are huge and resource intensive. XFce is much lighter and pretty nice. There's also iceWM which kinda looks like windows 95/98 but it's perfectly functional and very lightweight.

still the same error code for X server.

sorry but no go. I removed the X file and re-installed it but when I re-run startx, I get the same error message. question? In windows to get an unrully program to run again what would have to be done is to un-install it and then re-install it. So how do I go about un-installing and then re-installing from the terminal. thx

you would have to remove all the XFree or X.org related RPMs and then reinstall them. In fact, if you haven't done too much with your installation, it might be easier to just reinstall the whole thing. And then refrain from up2date. If you can control what to update and what not, then I'd avoid updating the X server related stuff for now.