Fedora 9 upgrade failure

So, the upgrade to Fedora 9 didn't go so well. After running the upgrade, X will not start. X is the windows part of the OS. I can get to the command line, but no programs that use GUI interfaces will run. I'm sure it is due to the frigging ATI drivers. I truly loathe ATI for having shitty drivers for Linux. Guess what. I do not have a copy of Fedora 9 on disk, so I cannot just turn around and install it from there. I have to obtain one. Nat does not have a DVD burner in her box. We really need to rectify that.

I have put off the updating of the server until I get my desktop working. I do not remember if I installed the ATI drivers on my server or not. Surely I was too lazy to have done so. Waiting is harder than it sounds. The first thing I need to do is back up some data. Then I need to get the DVD of Fedora 9. Then, I need to try an upgrade. When that doesn't work, I need to install fresh. Did you catch my faith in the upgrade process? Then comes restoring what data I can and starting the process of getting all the settings where I can use the box again. Pain in the ass.

Yes, I'm an idiot. I should have:

• Made backups before hand.
• Had the Fedora 9 DVD/CD on hand.
• RTFM (or in this case, the FAQ)
  
• Not done this on day one of the newly available files.
• Had Knoppix (recovery software) on hand.
  

The last time I did one of the YUM upgrades I got caught in a circular dependency during the upgrade. When attempting to install everything from the DVD, I got no warnings or errors. The box just sat there acting like it was doing something. This time, I still got those errors, but doing the upgrade this way at least tells me what is going on. My trouble is once everything is installed, the software that puts the GUI up breaks. I can see the computer attempting to switch from the CLI (Command line interface) to the GUI with some flickers. Then ... nothing.

It was my own fault. I have not yet lost any data that I'm aware of. Wish me luck.

And then I gave it a shot

It turns out all I had to do was remove (rename) my xorg.conf file. The system created another one when I rebooted the box. Things seem normal for the moment. I'll keep bitching if things break posting my results.