Upgrading potato -> progeny newton broke X11

[Johann Spies <jhspies@adept.co.za>]

Working in a Redhat dominated environment, I boasted about apt-get and
that a Debian system never have to be reinstalled if it is managed
properly.  After my recent experience I would not boast easily again.

I have a dialup system at home with potato on it.  So I decided to
upgrade to progeny and to make a new installation.  I followed
progeny's instructions, but it failed.  Somehow I could never get
"apt-get install progeny-standard-system" to work.  I think a new
installation would probably have taken about a quarter of the time I
have spent so far to get my system working again.  Anyhow this is not
a progeny list so all I am asking is how can I get my X11 to work
again.

gdm would just in a seemingly endless loop get back to the login
screen.  startx resulted in:
----------------------------------
/usr/bin/X11/xterm:  bad command line option "-xauth"

usage:  /usr/bin/X11/xterm [-version] [-help] [-display displayname]
...

Type /usr/bin/X11/xterm -help for a full description.


waiting for X server to shut down
--------------------------------

I could not find where xterm was being called upon in /etc/X11.  I
even removed all my files like ~/.xinitrc,  ~/.xsession,  ~/.Xdefaults
etc to try and eliminate the problem, but have had no success so far.

I feel a little bit embarrassed. I am supposed to be an experienced
Debian user and never since my newby days about 6 years ago did I
experienc a situation where I could not get X11 to work in one way or
another.  On my system at work (mixed woody/unstable) startx would not
work, but fortunately I could get gdm working.

I would appreciate some advice.
Johann.
-- 
J.H. Spies - Tel. 021-982 2694 / 082 782 0336 / 021-808 4036(w)  
             Posbus 4668, Tygervallei 7536
     "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor 
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      things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
      any other created thing, shall be able to separate us 
      from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
      Lord."          Romans 8:38,39