emerge world destroys machine

[brooney]

i did an emerge world today and, whoa, did it cause chaos. i should backtrack a bit. first off, i had the same issue as described in https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=147263#147263 a week and a half ago regarding modutils after doing a emerge system.

so first off, being an idiot at times, i uninstalled binutils instead of modutils. binutils being of utmost importance to linux, i quickly realized i was hooped a bit. but it was not crucial that i fix this right away as i needed my machine for work. as long as there wasn't a power outage and i didn't reboot, i could function fine.

so this saturday, came the point when i decided to tackle this big fart that i did. i eventually got binutils reinstalled, uninstalled modutils 2.4.22 and installed 2.4.19, rebooted and got linux working beautifully again. i was happy.

now, being a sucker for punishment, i decided the time was ripe for doing an emerge world. first i masked modutils 2.4.22 so that it would not install it and then i ran emerge world.

apparently, this was a huge mistake. once i rebooted, all chaos let loose.

modprobe stopped working completely. i can do an insmod to load modules but not modprobe. this meant my ext3 filesystem wouldn't mount, my usb mouse wouldn't work, my network card wouldn't load and that's all i've found so far . i then thought to myself and said, hmmm, maybe if i upgrade modutils to 2.4.22 then it may work....no such luck.

also, if i try to use fluxbox, my preferred window manager, and i can't. basically, my xserver won't accept connections anymore. why i don't know. if i try to allow connections using xhost +, i get permission denied. from within gnome window manager, X works fine.

so now i'm stuck. modprobe doesnt work at all and i can't use fluxbox. if anyone has any insight into this wonderful delima please feel free to impart that knowledge.

thanks
ben