Fedora 12: xwindows crashes

[dejvid]

I have just installed Fedora 12 on my lap top from a USB stick.
To start with it worked fine but then I installed a large number
of packages.

Now when just before the log on screen I get a blank screen

I can get into a terminal using <CNTRL><ALT><FN><F1>
but xrandr simply says "Can't open display"

and when I look in /etc/X11 there is nothing that looks to me
like an editable config file.

My hunch is that I some how changed the screen resolution
and only need to change it back but how?

I can still boot into xwindows using the live image on the USB stick
to I can access how xwindows ought to be configured.

Thanks for any help.

Daivid

[Roxoff]

In the old days (before Fedora 12 that is) it used to be possible to use 'system-config-display --reconfig' to reset the display, I've no way to test this at the moment, but you could give it a try.

Run this from a text mode command line and it'll try to open a new X display, to be safe, you probably want to do this from runlevel 3 rather than the graphical login runlevel too, and you may need to install the display config tool first. The sequence would be something like this:

1. do ctrl-alt-f2 to get to a text mode login
2. log-in as the root user
3. ensure the display tool is installed with 'yum install system-config-display'
4. change to runlevel 3 with 'init 3'
5. run the tool 'system-config-display --reconfig'
6. set up the display the way you need it, save any settings.
7. back to runlevel 5 (X/GDM login) with 'init 5'

You'd probably want to reboot after this, your root session on terminal 2 (ctrl-alt-f2) will still be logged in.