[ale] X11 module probs with Mandriva 2005 update

[aaron]

Thanks for the reply...
 
On Thursday 09 March 2006 15:50, William Bagwell wrote:
> On Thursday 09 March 2006 06:03 am, aaron wrote:
> > I'm trying to provide some long distance support to my daughter,
> > whose Mandriva system at college went wonky upon installing a
> > full system update from 10.2 to the "2005" release yesterday.
> 
> Um, 10.2 is 2005(LE). 2006 came out late last year if that is what you mean.

Yes. Thanks for the correction.

> > The system still boots and allows login, but is failing to bring
> > up Xwindows.  The errors from boot and her "startx" attempts
> > report missing X11R6 modules.
> 
> Older Nvidia card? Mandriva drooped support for a bunch of them in 2006. Now 
> have to install the Nvidia drivers for even 2D graphics on a dozen or so 
> older cards.

Possible, though graphics are on the MoBo and, since it's a 1ghz installed 
processor, I don't think the thing is more than a few years old.

> There is an ugly alternative that will allow X 
> to start. In 16 colors, looks like an old Win 3.1 box:-(

That would be entirely acceptable for the moment. Papers are due. :-P
But again, I don't think it is the video drivers. I'll need to check with
her on exactly which modules are being reported as missing.

> > I have done a couple of hours of research and man reading around
> > modprobe, insmod, moddep and such, but I am not well versed with
> > these kernel level operations. I am hoping someone here might be able
> > to provide a few basic "step by step" pointers for properly locating and
> > installing missing kernel modules.
> 
> Hope this is *not* what you need, because this is a bit over my head...

Likewise... (: gurgle, gurgle, blup, blup :) ...which is why I'm hoping for 
help if that turns out to be the shortest path to take.

> Oh, try a clean install keeping /home. I have used Mandr*** since 8.0 and 
> have *never* had an upgrade work 100% correctly...

We've considered going to install instead of update, but didn't have
enough confidence that we would _not_ lose her data (which, fortunately,
is all properly stored under /home/username).

Since you are familiar with Mandriva, can you confirm for us the how
and where within Mandriva's install steps we would the tell it to keep 
"/home"?  My recollection (from my own experience with a Mandriva
update failure) is that it was just a matter of telling the installer to use 
existing partitions.  Am I remembering correctly?

peace
aaron