Slitaz 3 xvesa would not boot to gui and startx gave a long list of errors including unable to read first line of xorg.conf, the contents of which had strange symbols as if it were not a plain text file.

I deleted xorg.conf* and rebooted. A strange graphics screen flashed too quickly to recognize but then the system booted to the normal login screen and I logged in normally.

* Edit- First, rename and save a copy elsewhere as a backup.