Imagine you wanted to uninstall a program like apache, mysql, or dns server and so you uncheck the little box next to them in Package Manager. It says it is uninstalling some dependencies and you click ok.

The next day you turn your computer on and it crashes at startup. Gnome has been uninstalled, gfx card drivers are missing, and god knows what else.

Wouldn't you think to yourself, F**K PACKAGE MANAGER F**KER F**K F**K F**K F**K **************************************************************************************************** ************************


Cause, indeed, I'm now at the point where I'm seriously doubting I'll ever get my system back.

After group installing gnome and reinstalling gfx drivers I'm still having some issues:

-can't right click on desktop.
-no icons on desktop
-computer crashes at startup unless I interrupt it with ctrl-alt-f3 and starx manually.
-when I click the little foot icon and choose "logout username" X crashes and I'm taken to an archaic shell (i guess runlevel 3?) that lists errors but the errors are too big to fit on the screen and I can't make sense of them because I can't see the whole thing.


Does anyone know how I could fix this? I would also like to know either how to scroll up in the archaic shell or where the error msg it displays is logged in the system so I can look at it.

Its not in /var/log/messages...

Well thanks for your time... I'm so angry...

It sounds like an issue with X.org or the window manager, so start with the "Xorg" log files in /var/log/. IIRC, the package manager on Fedora logs to /var/log/yum.log.

My instinct is that this relates to either the new Compiz 3D graphics system, or proprietary graphics drivers, or a combination of the two. Proprietary graphics drivers are of variable quality, and can't be debugged or supported. To run a stable system, it's best to avoid them wherever possible.

thanks for reply. yum.log is too short... it only shows stuff that I did today. Xorg.0.log also isn't showing any errors.

This sounds horribly familiar - especially the "Gnome has been uninstalled" bit.
And the "F**K PACKAGE MANAGER F**KER F**K F**K F**K F**K" response ...

Except it wasn't my box - I had decided to update the one in the sewing room. Uh-oh.
I suggested to herself that it might be a good time to go visit her mother - take all afternoon.
After looking around, I figured it was going to be all too hard to fix.
I had taken 2 backups of her data onto separate harddisks (one internal, one external), so I decided it was now a good time to do a clean install of the latest release of the distro.
Not what you wanted to hear I guess, but it was going to be a can of worms otherwise.

I recently had a similar situation where I was trying to get rid of beagle (which I just don't want) and ended up disabling Evolution, xmms, totem, and a few other things. WTF! Fortunately I was able to recover by reinstalling it but it would not be surprising if there were some packages whose dependencies might render a system unusable if they were removed.

Assuming however that your /home directory is on its own partition, your best bet may to simply reinstall. Just be sure to *not* format /home, and reinstall the distro "around" /home. Good luck with it

Thanks for replies. I will not reinstall. I will scour the ends of the earth until I find a reasonable solution.

Actually what I need is a fedora pro to just help me figure out what is wrong. My system is in-tact except for the log-in and something in the startup and of course my desktop. The menu where apps can be launched that usually resides at the bottom of the screen for people.. (i dunno what it is called) works fine but the desktop area around it is fuxed. Like the background image is gone, you can't right click it at all, etc.

I can fix this, I know I can, I just need a way to find out that error its giving me when I log out. Is there no way to scroll up in the runlevel 3 shell?

<shift>-<Pgup>