[Triumf-linux-users] Dec 11 yum updates and broken X server

[Donald Arseneau]

On Mon, December 12, 2016 12:31 pm, Frederick Jones wrote:
> Hi,
> On my SL6.8 workstation the Xorg server has stopped working
> properly.  I have not logged out or rebooted the machine,
> but OpenGL applications stopped working as of yesterday.
> The applications fail with "could not get .... visual"
> where .... is single buffer, double buffer, required, GLX,
> etc.  But xdpyinfo indicates that the X server does
> have the GLX extensions installed.
> The glxinfo also fails: could not find RGB visual or fbconfig.
>
> Checking in the yum.log:
>
> Dec 11 04:07:56 Updated: kmod-nvidia-375.20-1.el6.elrepo.x86_64
> Dec 11 04:08)07 Updated: nvidia-x11-drv-375.20-1.el6.elrepo.x86_64
>
> There were many previous updates of these packages that did not
> cause any problem.
>
> Since the Xorg process has been running for months, I assume that
> these updates have screwed up some shared libraries that are loaded
> by the applications at run time.  Logging in via Nx to start a
> different session (with its own new Xorg) does not help -- messages are
> the same.

I recall that sort problem, when updates get the triad of kernel,
nvidia, and X out of synch.  Sometimes it happens when you start X
(log in), sometimes when you reboot (start using a new kernel), or
sometimes immediately.  If you already have an updated kernel
waiting, then just reboot. If you don't update kernels automatically,
then maybe an update will fix it.

A few days ago I installed nvidia-375 NOT from rpm but from the Nvidia
download, and it works fine.



Donald Arseneau, TRIUMF CMMS, asnd at triumf.ca