Well, more accurately, I broke X-Windows while trying to get Doom III to work.
X-Windows works (I think) by using one of the many available X-Servers in combination with some front end stuff and information about your hardware. Some time during the Warty release of Ubuntu, they switched from using XFree86 to XOrg as their X-server of choice. I couldn’t get Doom III (and the ATI drivers) to work with XOrg, though, so I tried to reinstall XFree86. Unfortunately, some change or other I’ve made prevented this. So I tried to reinstall XOrg. I think my attempts at XFree86 installation may have stopped that from working, too. So now I have no X-Windows at all.
Fortunately it’s pretty easy, even from a basic terminal, to back up everything that’s important onto my lovely server. Rather than trying to fix all the X stuff which I know nothing about, I’m just going to reinstall the Ubuntu partition on my PC.
Hopefully if I use a fresh installation of the latest release (Hoary) then I can work out what I did wrong. If I can get Doom III running it’s another link severed in the chains that bind me to Windows.
I’ve moved between XFree and Xorg several times both ways (involuntarily from XFree->Xorg – have now given up trying to keep any gentoo box on XFree), it’s always a right pain in the arse.
X is the source of all linux related pain I’ve ever had. I think I should buy a mac.
Right; definitely downloading Hoary tonight, then.