[SOLVED] bad system update broke my X server

[yayo]

Hello! I did the usual system update yesterday night, and except for a pcsxr in @preserved-rebuild which keeps failing to recompile (minor issue at this point), everything was fine as usual. Today I booted my pc and X failed to start. I'm now trapped in a console only pc, using links to enter the forums and typing this msg. My /var/log/Xorg.0.log says "intel: module ABI major version (20) doesn't match the server's version (23)". I did a quick search with links and I read something on the xorg-drivers changelog page about some drivers dropped or something. Is there someone who can healp me to understand what happened exactly, and how to easily revert the changes (downgrade) so to get a working pc again and then be free to perform a better bugtracking? My make.conf VIDEO_CARDS setting are "intel i965 radeon radeonsi". I changed nothing, just did the system update as usual. Keep in mind that I'm having big troubles even in doing copy/paste (not even the mouse is working here, what a mess... gh!). Any suggestion is welcome. thanks.

[Jaglover]

Are you loading Intel driver from xorg.conf?

Why you have radeon listed, do you have hybrid graphics?

Did you run emerge @x11-module-rebuild?
_________________
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[yayo]

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ has a 10-evdev, 20-backlight, 20opengl, 25-fonts, 30-composite and 50-synaptics .conf files. Except for the backlight conf there's no other video setting. (Since it's 2 years I'm using this pc it seems that so far it was not required, I guess...). This one is a laptop with radeon R5M230 and, if I understood correctly, an embedded intel which must be turned on to get the radeon working (cause it pipes the signal or something). If this is what you mean with hybrid, yes it is. And no, I did not run @x11-module-rebuild, I didn't even know about it. I did not notice any msg about it. Should emerge have noticed me about rebuilding the modules, or is it something I'm supposed to know and to remember by myself? Is it possible that the @preserved-rebuild msg about pcsxr covered the x11-module-rebuild one at the end of the update? Anyway I did a test with a pretend otion and in fact is giving me an update on the intel module. I'm going to try now and I'll report the result in some minutes.

[yayo]

ok, solved!
emerge @x11-module-rebuild fixed it.

But I didn't know nothing about it and emerge didn't give me any x11-module warning. Is it possible? Maybe the @preserved-rebuild message covered it? Sadly pcsxr fails to compile, so I cannot fix it, and I keep having that preserved-rebuild warning at every update. : /
I would like to understand if it's been my mistake or something else, just to avoid it happening again. Thanks.

[khayyam]

[yayo]

I'm not sure I understood what you mean, (my English needs improvement ), but if I got it correctly you're saying it's nothing usually should happens, like an incident. So it's not my mistake. Well I hope so.
I have a set of printed papers I made for myself with all the informations about system update, kernel update, system settings and other stuff. Anytime I find something new that I don't know, I write down a note. I'll add a line about this x11-module-rebuild, just in case... If one day something like this will happen again (hopefully not) I'll try this too before going to panic.
And about the pcsxr I'll wait for the mantainers to fix the link with ffmpeg.

Meanwhile I'll mark the topic as solved.
Thanks guys! : )

[yayo]

Aaaand... I'm here again! : P

I don't know why but I suspected that something like this was going to happen... : /
Last time I avoided to do depclean after update. I waited for some days to verify that anything was okay.

I did another system update yesterday and this time I did also --depclean.
In the list of removable packages that emerge gave me, there was also the xf86-video-intel package.

I supposed the drivers have been merged/embedded somewhere else and that this was the reason of all that mess, and also why emerge consider it no longer protected, so that it was safe to remove that very version/package.
Wrong. Of course. -_-'
Well, it was weird that there was no other versions listed as protected (you know, with version number written in green). But how can I know if someone has reordered things in different ways or something?

Today the system was still stuck in text/console mode.

Calling @x11-module-rebuild no longer provided me an intel driver to rebuild (why? was it not listed in the video-drivers system variable just for that purpose?), and I've been forced to re-emerge it manually.
I've been lucky to find out the package name easily making "emerge --search intel", because I really cannot remember all the system libraries correct fullnames. So I reinstalled it and now it's working again.

But now the package is manually installed (it is in the @world list).
Why am I supposed to put the needed video drivers in a system variable in order to get them managed by the system itself, if this is not going to work?
Why am I asked to used depclean to "safely" remove packages if even this is not going to work (even more with such important drivers)?

Well, I understand and I agree that the system is tested, powerful, fully functional, and that there are just random accidental mistakes and such... I'm not gonna yelling at people doing hard work every day to provide me such complex system for free... I would like to thank you all instead.

But something went definitely wrong with the update this time, and while it's ok for it to happens for software like game emulators, it's not for video drivers. (You know, it's a very-very-important part of the system. : P )

Could someone help me to understand where to put my hands (if it's possible) to get the intel package still automatically managed by the system according to the video_cards variable, and not manually installed, nor provided as a removable package any time I do depclean?
Thanks, and sorry for bothering you again.

[asturm]

Remove any xorg.conf that enables the intel driver and let your gpu be driven by modesetting instead.

"intel i965" no longer pulls in the broken xf86-video-intel driver.

[yayo]

"locate xorg.conf" gives me this list of files:

[asturm]

Exactly.

[yayo]

Ok. I moved the file temporary somewhere else, unmerged the xf86-video-intel, and reboot.
Seems to work fine so far. So I guess it's solved.

Do I need to change the VIDEO_CARDS variable too, or must it remain as it is ("intel i965 radeon radeonsi")?

[asturm]

Why radeon*? Anyway, if you are happy with modesetting, and Intel is your only GPU, you would be safe setting it to "" (not the same as not setting it at all, that would install all the video drivers).

[yayo]

As I previously said:

[asturm]

OK, I overlooked that. Then keep it as-is. If you drop radeonsi, it would pull in all the radeon drivers instead (r200, 300, 600).

[yayo]

Ok, thank you asturm! : )