Fedora Core 3 and X server error.
 

:Pengy:
First let me say I'm somewhat new to Linux. My last experience was a few years ago with RH9. However, since then I've been using Mac OS X, so I didn't have much need for it. But I have an old computer I want to use as a Linux machine, and I'm running into some problems post-installation. So how about the basics.

First the computer:

Gateway G6-400, Pentium 2 400mhz
16 meg 3dfx video card
128mb RAM
DVD-ROM, CD-RW
20gig HD

Now the issue:

I first started by doing a clean install of Red Hat 9 from my old disc, just to see if the computer could handle it. Worked perfectly. I then downloaded the 4 .iso files for Fedora Core 3, i386. After burning the images to disc, and yes the md5sum was correct :), I ran the install. Everything worked just fine, minus the fact that I had to load from a text menu, but no big deal. When I rebooted after the install had completed, the boot hung at "Compiling Kernal Parameters". I searched high and low for a fix to this problem. And after browsing through countless forums and google's, I came across a thread telling me I need to update the drivers and run a "yum update."

init '3'
root
rpm --import /usr/share/doc/fedora-release-3/RPM-GPG-KEY
rpm --import /usr/share/doc/fedora-release-3/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
yum update

yada yada yada

A couple hours later, and no hanging. But now I get a new message.
"Cannot start X server (your graphical interface). Likely it's not setup correctly. Would you like to diagnose the problem?"

Of course I hit 'yes'. Then it says "Would you like to view the detailed X server output as well". Again I say yes. Then, "Would you like to run the X configuration program.". Yes again. I enter my root password...

"Trying with card: RIVA128
Couldn't start X server on card 0
Couldn't start X server with old configuration, trying with a fresh configuration
Trying with card: RIVA128
Couldn't startX server on card 0
Error, faild to start X server."

I ran a "system-config-display", basically the same results.
So now I'm stuck.
Oh yeah, I have two kernal's working with,

2.6.12-1.1381_FC3 on an i686
and
2.6.9-1.667

If I'm missing anything, please let me know.

Thank you all in advance.

Ok, so hardware detection of your 3dfx card is failing. Do you have a Banshee, by any chance? That would explain it, as the current "tdfx" driver only support Voodoo 3 and up of the 3dfx cards. For your Banshee, I'm affraid you will have to use the vesa generic driver, how? simple:

Again, go into init 3, either by booting telling the program not to try and diagnose the problem and not executing system-config-display, then login as root. You should have however a file called "xorg.conf" under /etc/X11/, if you don't don't panic, just say so and I'll post a generic one (configured and all), basically you'll only need a copy/paste. Anyway, if you do, open the file with a text editor like nano:
The -w flag will prevent nano from adding new line characters to lines that don't fit into the screen, and will display such lines in full length (i.e on the same line). Navigate the file until you find a Section called Section "Device" There you should see something like the following:
If you see such thing, just change the Driver to "vesa" and add the board's name. You could try to use the tdfx driver and take a shot at getting 3D working, but I can't assure it will work, though. In the next section:
Add the modes (i.e resolutions) you want to use and the bit depth, unless you want 3D you can have 24-bit depth withou problems for the desktop with either the tdfx or the vesa driver, if you want to take the shot and test 3D, you'll need to set the 16-bit mode as the default. The modes "probed" and used are passed to the X server from left to right, so if you want say, 1024 resolution as the default, but have available the others, the line should be:
Save the file, exit nano, and test.

Hope this helps.

Thetargos

Thank you very much. I did exactly what you explained, and everything worked just fine. Funny thing though, I forgot what my username was. :D Good thing I have root, so I'll have to look it up. Look good so far, I'll let you know if I run into any more problems.

Thanks again.

For your username you can always resort to an X session as root, and execute system-config-users to find out which users are present on the system and from the program modify/erase/create users and asin passwords ;)