[lug] RH 7.3 failure of X11 after KDE update

[D. Stimits]

D. Stimits wrote:

> I'm looking for something more recent than I found under google. I just
> upgraded a RH 7.3 install with pretty much every upgrade on the updates
> site. I'd been keeping up fairly well with upgrades, but recently KDE
> and everything related to KDE was added. Other major items such as glibc
> and compiler were already updated, though I did update python and qt as
> well. The problem is that I cannot start X11 now, it dies with this
> error in the X11 log
>   Fatal server error:
>   could not open default cursor font 'cursor'
>
> The google searches don't seem to indicate anything relevant. The cursor
> file itself appears to be in
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/cursor.pcf.gz. I have tried rebuilding the
> font related files via mkfontdir, no use. I tried reinstalling the
> kdebase-3.0.3-0.7.2 rpm which supplies the cursor font, no help. Nothing
> related to the kernel itself nor to OpenGL or AGP has been changed.
> Rather than trying to downgrade all of the KDE stuff I just installed
> (I'm guessing between 1 and 2 dozen packages), I'd like to figure out
> what other package might be broken that I can reinstall. Changing to RH
> 8 or reinstalling at this time is not an option, and overly drastic for
> a KDE failure or X font failure.
>
> Does anyone here have any experience with upgrading RH 7.3 KDE (actually
> KRUD 7.3) causing the cursor font to fail? Or suggestions on trying to
> figure out which package is in conflict (apparently it isn't the kdebase
> which supplies the cursor font, I tried that)? The X server itself was
> not upgraded, it is 4.2.0-8, along with compat libs for 4.0.3-2.

An update on the above problem. Commenting out the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 
line for the font path as the xfs font server, and replacing it with 
manual font path information allows the font cursor to be read, and X11 
to work fine (except of course for X font server features which might be 
nice to have back). The thing is that the font server is provided by 
XFree86-xfs-4.2.0-8, which I never updated or changed. I am using the 
updated 3.0.3-0.7.1 version now for all of the KDE stuff and it works fine.

Updating all of these KDE packages somehow seems to have indirectly 
destroyed the xfs font server, though I can't see how/why. Downgrading 
all of the previously upgraded packages does not fix this. Whichever 
configuration file has been altered is unknown; I ruled out 
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4, it hasn't been altered, except for me doing the 
hand addition of a manual font path till it is figured out. Does anyone 
here have any suggestions on what may have been altered in upgrade KDE 
from ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.3/en/os/i386/ ? I did upgrade some other 
things like the pdf from that site, but I see nothing related to X11 or 
the font server other than KDE.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com