Fedora Core 4 gremlins

Hello there!
I hope you can help me and I am posting in the right forum (I am new here and just realised that I did post in the wrong place) :-)) anyway here goes

I am having alot of problems with Fedora Core 4
I was so happy with Fedora Core 3 that yesterday I decided it was time to update my computer to Fedora Core 4. I chose the unsupported command line way of doing it with YUM (because I didn't really have a good backup device to hand and didn't want to lose my files!) and it all went very well indeed! The only thing that happened bad was YUM told me that some package needed lm_sensors or something like that anyway, I removed the package and let YUM get on with its work, lm_sensors was later put back in by yum anyway.

So, the first glitch I notice after rebooting with my nice new system is glitchy sound!! It seemed just like system sounds in Gnome, Realplayer, Xine etc were not affected so I could live with that bug. I also learnt others were having that problem using normal CD installation

The second bug I noticed was right clicking in Gnome and selecting Open Terminal, it broke Gnome badly and no menus would work which helped me find the 3rd bug! Now, when something in X crashes that bad I escape to a TTY using my Alt+F1-7 keys but doing this revealed just a blank screen! I could not and still cannot get my TTYs up. I then got Fluxbox as a temporary measure to prevent those crashes with Gnome. The gnome crashes can happen at any time even just clicking an MP3 on my system

So, was it a bad move to use the terminal and YUM to upgrade or are these normal? My computer is a Dell Optiplex GX260 SF business workstation with a 2GIG CPU and a 768MB of RAM and 20 GB hard disc drive. It has an Intel i845

Sorry for the long post! I thaught I would share my experience of these bugs with you. What would you recommend I do? Change distro ( I like SuSE and the sound of Ubuntu with its Apt) and I never wish to go back to Windows as everything I need is in Linux and better so! This experience has made me like Linux more! Although I couln't fix the problems, it gives me an excuse to try out other distros!

I installed using a DVD and I also encountered almost the same problem as tribalmasters'. My main concern is switching from GUI to command line mode. Everytime i do a "/sbin/init 3" command in terminal my GUI interface closes which is normal but everything stops at [anacron] service and it hangs. I need to install the Nvidia drivers to play HalfLife2 and Counter Strike Source but it won't let you install the drivers if your in GUI mode. Any help on these issues will be greatly appreciated by this LINUX noobie. I'll even throw in a six pack of BUD or a bottle of Jack Daniels

This is not a fix (I'm having the problem as well ), but merely another way to install your NVidia drivers:

Instead of using /sbin/init 3, you can change your /etc/inittab file. change "id:5:initdefault:" to read "id:3:initdefault". After restart, you'll go straight to command line mode without loading X. Run the NVidia script, and then change the line back to "5" and restart.

Or, if you use GRUB as your bootloader, when GRUB appears, press "a" then append "single" to the end of the list of commands shown. This will start Fedora in single user mode, in which you are now root and it shows a text prompt. Navigate to where your NVIDIA drivers are and install.

The init stuff is always a bit annoying, but i think you'll find if you press enter a few times after it seems to hang at anacron it will take you back to the command line. If not try opening another tty and logging in as root, and killing the other tty that has locked.