Gnome Crashes ; /dev Files Not Created

[Robert L Cochran]

As of October 5, the latest set of updates from the RHN Severn channel 
causes Gnome to crash messily. On my older Dell XPS T550 desktop, I get 
these Gnome messages:

"The greeter program appears to be crashing. I will attempt to use a 
different one."

Clicking OK yields a different logon panel, on which I attempt to logon 
as an ordinary user. This yields another message:

"Cannot find or run the base session script, will try the GNOME failsafe 
session for you."

Clicking OK yields this message:

"This is the Failsafe Gnome session. You will be logged into the 
'Default' session of Gnome with no startup scripts run. This is only to 
fix problems in your installation."

Clicking OK to this brings up the Fedora Core splash screen against a 
black background.

Also, /dev/cdrom and /dev/cdrom1, /mnt/cdrom and /mnt/cdrom1 are not 
created on this machine:

$ mount /dev/cdrom
mount: special device /dev/cdrom does not exist

On my Sony Vaio PCG-F350 with the same updates, X hangs without any 
messages being issued at all during the boot process. The only cure is 
to shut down the machine with the power switch.


-- 
Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
http://greenbeltcomputer.biz/