Quote:
Originally Posted by groucho157
I am new to using Fedora. I ran a couple updates last night so I could use WinAmp. This morning, a white bar or a mixed color bar about 1 1/2 wide appears at the bottom of the screen.
Could this be a video driver issue or are these colors comparable to a BSOD in windows?
Being a very notice Linux user, I am not sure how to force VGA mode if this is even the problem. thanks
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If you yum updated recently it installed a new kernel. This will break your NVidia driver. I know because I just recompiled mine last night after updating.
The first thing you should do with a fresh fedora install, if you are using vendor provided video drivers, is train it to boot in console mode. This way when yum updates your kernel it doesn't wreck your ability to log in:
# vi /etc/inittab
change the line that looks like:
id:5:initdefault:
to
id:3:initdefault:
After that you boot to a shell prompt.
# startx
is all you need to do to start xwindows. You can even put it in .bash_rc in your home directory.
Once setup this way, you update kernel, it foobars the kernel module, and after logging in to the shell, .bash_rc will run startx and it will just puke and drop you back down to a prompt, where you can just re-run the vendor provided install script and be right back in business.
To get out of your current situation:
1. pop in the fedora install disk
2. at the install prompt type :linux rescue
3. chroot /mnt/sysimage
4. edit /etc/inittab like above
reboot.
After rebooting, log in, rerun NVIDIA[whatever] or the ATI or other vendor provided equivalent from shell. It will reinstall the driver and you'll be back in business. Type:
# startx
and you should be good to go.
There may be a better way than this, but this is how I've been doing it since NVidia released their first linux driver. It works well so I haven't bothered finding a better way.
There is a whole system running under XWindows and you don't need XWindows to use it. XWindows is just another program and it's dependant on that video driver working.
I don't like being locked out of my system just because my kernel module binary just got outdated 8)
The fedora setup program assumes you will use the generic video drivers supplied with the distro, so the "out of the box" initdefault is not suitable if you do something different.
-Viz