I upgraded a system with a Permedia 2 video card, which uses the glint drivers. The installer couldn’t launch the GUI, but I’ve run into that fairly often, so I just used the text-based installer without thinking much of it. The upgrade process itself went fine, but on booting into the new system, it was unable to launch X. I kept getting the following error:

X: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//glint_drv.so: undefined
symbol: RamDacCreateInfoRec

I found a reference to the problem occurring in Debian, as Debian bug #423129, then followed that to Freedesktop.org bug 10906, which has been fixed. It turns out that the xorg X server moved some features from a pluggable module into the server itself, but didn’t keep them available for drivers that use them. I tested the patch with the X server SRPM from Fedora, and was able to run the system in graphics mode again.

Then I checked Fedora’s bug database, and found Red Hat bug 242800, filed just yesterday. I confirmed that I had the same problem, pointed them at the upstream bug, and reported that the fix worked for me.

For those who are comfortable with modifying and building SRPMs, you can grab xorg-x11-server-1.3.0.0-5.fc7.src.rpm from any Fedora mirror, then add the patch from that Freedesktop.org bug report to the SPEC file. That will give you a set of RPMs that will work with the card. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably better off waiting until Fedora has a chance to test the fix and issue an update, but if you want to learn, check out the RPM Guide, particularly chapters 8 and 9.)

Update (June 7): A fixed version, xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.3.0.0-8.fc7 has hit the testing repository.

Update (June 11): The fix has been released, so all you have to do is install/upgrade in text mode and run yum update after you’re done.

There are two main issues: making Mozilla’s Firefox installer work everywhere (it mostly does, but on some systems you need to install some compatibility libraries first), and keeping the distributions’ versions in sync with the official one.

After the Debian IceWeasel debacle, and Fedora deciding to skip Firefox 2 and wait for Firefox 3, it’s good to know that Mozilla has recognized the problem and is working on it. One key piece of information: Red Hat and Novell will both be providing extended support for Firefox 1.5 past its official EOL next April.

(via Fedora Weekly News)

And that’s just web servers.

Tell me again how everyone’s abandoning Fedora Core in the wake of the Red Hat/Fedora split?

I don’t have any computers running Fedora 1 anymore! I’ve moved all my desktops up to Fedora Core 2, and all the Linux servers I manage are still running Red Hat 7.3 or 9 with unofficial updates.

No wonder the fast release plan didn’t bug me much!

(As I wrote this, the notice for the Fedora 2 update came across, but seeing just the one did give me a bit of a start when I realized it didn’t apply.)