Created attachment 427549 [details]
tarball with logs and backtrace

After today's update to the latest kernel kernel-desktop-2.6.37.6-0.5.1.i586, X server fails to start. As it tries to start (through gdm) the display flickers, it looks a bit as if there are flashes (from thunder) in the distance. Eventually, gdm gives up.

The server actually aborts:

Core was generated by `/usr/bin/Xorg :5 -br -verbose -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-WtNOf/database -'.
Program terminated with signal 6, Aborted.
#0  0xffffe424 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
...
#4  0x080b0087 in ddxGiveUp () at xf86Init.c:953
        i = <value optimized out>
#5  0x080b0135 in AbortDDX () at xf86Init.c:999
        i = <value optimized out>
...
#11 0xb4bb1226 in driCreateNewScreen (scrn=0, ddx_version=0xbf9ff7a8, dri_version=0xbf9ff79c, drm_version=0xbf9ff790, frame_buffer=0xbf9ff774, pSAREA=0xb7305000, fd=12, extensions=0xb73a24c4, driver_modes=0xbf9ff7b4, loaderPrivate=0x82b4638) at ../common/dri_util.c:830

It looks like it could be a problem in Mesa, at least that's the code which gets executed just before the server aborts.

The X server worked more or less OK before this update. I say more or less, because it would occasionally happen that the upper 70% of the screen flickers. A reboot or suspend/resume cycle would then most often help.

The console on boot remains in the same ugly text mode, i.e. it doesn't change to high resolution.

Booting into the failsafe mode makes the problem away. Also disabling dri and dri2 in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf, though in this case the console again remains in the text mode and the server crashes when resizing the Terminal (see bnc#691234).

Interestingly, downgrading the kernel to the previous version didn't help.

In the attached tarball there should be all information about the crash and the system. From the rpm --last output you'll see which packages got upgraded since Apr 24 when the system was last time rebooted and the X server functioned properly.

This may be a duplicate of another bug, there are quite a few concerning the radeon driver, but I couldn't find the exact match.