Comment # 2 on bug 904146 from Tony Jones

(In reply to Stefan Dirsch from comment #1)
> Try with boot option 'nomodeset', then install NVIDIA drivers.

Is there a plan-B?   nomodeset changes nothing,  other than limiting the
display resolution.    

This is my primary development workstation and it's always worked with the
standard drivers,  until now.

Also, do you know why post update, the X logs are going to /var/log/messages
and not Xorg.0.log ?

I see these logs from the driver: 
(WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting"
(EE) NOUVEAU(0): [COPY] failed to allocate class.