XOrg issues after installing patches

Earier today I installed the lastesr patches to my SUSE 12.2 machine. Subsequently, it will not boot into graphical mode. The errors I get are:

hostname: Name or service not known
xauth: file /home/richard/.serverauth.1042 does not exist

Fatal server error:
Cannot move old log file “use/log/Xorg.O.log” to “/var/log/Xorg.O.old”

Please consult The X.Org Foundation support
at http://wikki.x.org
for help

xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to x server: Connection refused
xinit: server error

xinit failed. /usr/bin/Xorg is not setuid, maybe that’s the reason?
If so either use a display manager (strongly recommended) or adjust /etc/permissions.local

This is essentially the message you’d get if you were logged in as user and tried to start the graphical environment via “startx” or such … which begs the question if that is what you are attempting to do? Or do you normally boot straight into a desktop environment?

Another quick thought is that your ~/.Xauthority and/or ~/.ICEauthority files have gotten their permissions messed up and switched to root ownership (typically because the user was mucking around in a DE as root).

I usually boot straight into KDE. Now it freezes during startup, and as a result I started a new non-grapgical session simply because the GRUB2 boot-up graphics of course hides any error messages displayed.

The only way I can now access a graphical desktop is using recovery mode.

“Another quick thought is that your ~/.Xauthority and/or ~/.ICEauthority files have gotten their permissions messed up and switched to root ownership (typically because the user was mucking around in a DE as root).” As in /home? Whats the easy fix for that (Returning to Linux after a long break in the OSX world…I’ve forgotten a lot).