So I took a look at my packages and saw that there were updates to TDE (from 
14.0.0 to 14.0.3, openSUSE here).

I first choose "update if newer" for all my packages (in Yast) and ended in a 
disaster: apparently minimal X with a terminal, message about wrong 
permissions for Xorg.

Setting these permissions right let me start X...  but only in KDE 4!

I thought the problem was with openSUSE, so I restored and tried updating only 
Trinity. This time the message is:

.servauth.1668 does not exist
cannot open /var/log/xorg.1.log
please consult X.org foundation support

There are plenty of lines with (EE) too

Same correction to Xorg now brings up Icevm.

I'm out of my depth here. I restored again and will make a copy install to 
investigate the matter. I understand this may be openSUSE linked but any 
suggestion can help.

Not urgent however, 14.0.0 is running very well...

Thierry