new install ... monitor fails
 

I am a relatively new user to Linux, i have used Gentoo in the past, but i had to get a friend to set it up for me. Now, i'm trying to run Red Hat 9 (it has an easier install) but after all is done and the system reboots, my monitor goes blank. i did install the right drivers for the monitor and the video card, but after the boot up process (i'm assuming when it's loading the Kernel) the monitor goes into standby mode, and i can't do anything. Is there something that i missed when i installed it?

How old is the system? Red Hat 9 is pretty old nowadays. You might try Fedora if you like the Red Hat series...

My machine is about 2 years old maybe ... it's a 1.7Ghz Pentium. Where would i find a newer version of Redhat?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Red Hat 9 was the last version of the old Red Hat series. The company switched to the Enterprise linux version and now have a community based version called Fedora Core. If the machine is as new as you say, I bet the kernel on RH9 isn't new enough to support your hardware.

So in short, try Fedora Core or CentOS (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, only stripped of the red hat logos).

or take the two quizes in my signature to see if there's a different distro you want to try! :D

Both of the sites you linked for me suggested a distribution called Ubuntu. I have never heard of that before. Where would i get a live cd of it?

Thanks for your help pljvaldez, i am looking into torrents of Fedora core right now ... my computer doesn't have a DVD drive, so i need to find ISO's of cd's. Which version of Fedora would you recommend? i can download 3,4 and 5 (each 5 says it's a test version).

Also, since i'm running a pentium, would i download the x86 or the i386?

Thanks again.

From www.ubuntu.com Ubuntu is a Debian based distro. It's (arguably) regarded as the best Newbie distro and is currently number 1 at distrowatch.com most downloaded distros (which I guess is another place you can get it).

If you go with Ubuntu, check out the Unofficial Ubuntu Guide and Automatix

Oh yeah, here's some screenshots that might help you walk through the installer.

Since i didn't install Gentoo last time, what type of Ubuntu would i need? x86 or i386? (i'm assuming those would be the most likely types since i'm running a pentium)

Also, what's the difference between 'install' and 'live'?

Based on your description, it very well could be a framebuffer issue. Assuming you're using lilo, you'd want to select a low resolution framebuffer setting, eg, something like 800x600 and 256 colors. The lilo.conf file exists in the /etc directory, and anytime you edit lilo.conf, you need to rerun the lilo program in order for those changes to take effect. As root
Good luck with it

The "install" version is for putting it on your hard drive. The "live" version is if you just want to run it from you CD-rom and leave your current hard drive untouched. In short, the live CD is more of a demo so you can play around and get used to linux (you can also do system recovery stuff, but I digress) while not actually installing anything. You pop out the CD and you're back to Red Hat 9. The install CD will probably wipe your drive unless you do advanced partitioning. And install Ubuntu only.

Oh, and as for Fedora, you probably want 4 as like you said 5 is still in development.

Just a note, Ubuntu should be a lot easier to upgrade to the next version than Fedora. In my limited experience the Fedora distro's don't upgrade very flawlessy, they're more like installing windows where a fresh install is better than an upgrade.

Thanks guys,

I have downloaded and installed Ubuntu and i am using as we speak. It is definately easy to upgrade ... Gentoo was a nightmare for me to upgrade (being a newbie and all).

Also, www.ubuntu.com doesn't seem to have any programs for download other than their kernel. Where would i go to download extra programs that weren't complete with the install?

Thank you once again.

If you follow the link I gave you above to the Unofficial Ubuntu Guide, you'll find how to add repositories that let you download thousands of other programs. Installing programs with Ubuntu is easy, just use synaptic or from the CLI type apt-get install programname. Also look into automatix for things like flash, java, firefox 1.5, etc.