X hang & general procedures

[JB]

Hey X community, I've recently attempted to upgrade Ubuntu (14.10; Xorg 
1.16) and ran into problems with the X hanging quite frequently; 
although I'm not sure what exactly is causing those hangs. I've 
reinstalled to 14.04 (Xorg 1.15.1) and had the same problems; then 
finally reinstalled to Ubuntu 13.10 (Xorg 1.14.6) and haven't had any 
problems so far.

I've heard that its most helpful if I can perform something called 
"Bisecting", where I continuously upgrade X until I hit the version 
which is causing me problems. I've never done anything like this before, 
and I have a few questions before I start:

  * I've read that X is so closely tied in with Ubuntu that you simply
    cannot upgrade or downgrade X without breaking some other components
    of Ubuntu. If that's the case, then have I already done all that I
    can do by determining that the issue occurs between 1.14.6 and 1.15.1?
  * I feel ridiculous saying that the hang occurs randomly. Obviously it
    must be caused by something, but the logs don't state anything of
    interest. In a case like this, what can I do to pinpoint exactly
    what's going on?
  * Is there any way that I can temporarily upgrade X just to ease in
    this testing & bug reporting process? That would be much more
    preferable than reinstalling the OS twice, and also for testing
    things in the future before I upgrade my system


Any insight into these things would be really very helpful. I'm googling 
around, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of guides for those newbies 
like me. Thanks!

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