changed display settings now can't see

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 01:37 PM

I just installed RedHat 9, and everything was working reat, so I tried bumping the display colors fron 16 thousand something to 16 million something. When I rebooted, after X begins to load everything go black, and now I am blind.

What can I do to correct this, change this, get to a command line, anything? I set auto start X, and so I am lost, and do not want to do another install. There has got to be a way to break the boot process and get to a command line, and change the fricking display settings. I just spend three hours trying to figure it out, and looking online. I need help!

-JUstin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 03:09 PM

1. Boot either linux 3 or linux single and repair
2. Put install CD1 or a boot floppy in and boot linux rescue and repair.
3. Edit /etc/inittab and change from run level 5 to run level 3. startx isn't that hard to type, IMHO and with bash history, up arrow usually types it out for me..

Red Hat Linux - Basic System Recovery

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 04:37 PM

Ok I booted in Rescue mode(single user) mode. Now what do I do? I have a prompt that looks like this:

sh-2.05b#

I tried the "edit" command and it didn't reconize that as a valid command. What's next, I still need to get X up in low res, and low colors so I can reset the display settings.

-Justin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 04:52 PM

Booting into Rescue Mode

Is pine installed? If so, try this, if not joe should be launched.

cd /mnt/sysimage/etc/X11
pico -w XF86Config-4

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 04:56 PM

Those commands seemed to open some kind of editor. Now what?

-Justin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 05:02 PM

Edit the Section "Screen" to what you had before

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 05:05 PM

I don' t think you understand. I see absolutely nothing in this except a flashing curser on a black screen. I can use control G to view the help screen, but there are no "lines" to edit. My curser is flashing on line 1, and that's it there is nothing below line 1.

Is there another way to get my display settings to work?

-Justin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 05:09 PM

You need to open the file /mnt/sysimage/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 in the editor. I don't use joe, so I can't tell you how to use it.

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 05:11 PM

Would you happen to have Midnight Commander installed? Command mc and see if it comes up.

Never mind, you would have to chroot to use it, probably beyond your skill just now.

# Configuring X
Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO - video cards
The Linux XFree86 HOWTO
Configuring XFree86 for a Non-Specific Linux Distribution
Common X configuring tools:
Debian - dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
Mandrake - XFdrake
Red Hat Linux 9: Red Hat Linux Reference Guide Chapter 7. The X Window System
Redhat 7.3 down - the setup utility leads to several config tools
Redhat 7.3 up - redhat-config-xfree86
You may have these tools:
XF86Setup
XFree86 -configure
Xconfigurator
xf86cfg
xf86config
xconf
ATI Linux drivers
If you need the nVidia driver, you want the Linux IA32 driver unless you just bought the new AMD 64 bit CPU

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 05:17 PM

Ok, I opened a file called "XF86Config" not "XF86Config-4" and I got a lot of lines to configure. One of the lines is the "Screen" section you were talking about? Is this the right file to edit?

Also, the "Screen" section looks like this:

Section Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

______________________

What do I edit?

-Justin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 05:27 PM

Possibly, the last Red Hat I used was 7.3 so they may have changed things between that and 9.0

Try chang ing the line DefaultDepth 24 line to DefaultDepth 16 or DefaultDepth 8, save and reboot.

I also suggest changing the boot to runlevel 3 and using the command startx to go to the gui. That's in the /etc/inittab file.

XFree86 Server Configuration Files

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 05:37 PM

Ok I think I made all the correct changes. What command can I issue to reboot the machine? I tried shutdown -r -t "now" and it didn't work.

-Justin

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 05:39 PM

thalerz · 11-20-2003, 05:42 PM

I am sick of this anyway, I am re-installing now. Thanks for your help anyways, I learned a lot!

-Justin

fancypiper · 11-20-2003, 05:57 PM

Make sure you install Midnight Commander and DONT BOOT INTO THE GUI as it makes configs much harder when everything is hidden.

An Introduction to the Midnight Commander