Changing GFX drivers
 

Hi, I'm new to linux and Ive just installed Red Hat 8 on its own partion. All seemed to be well, I manged to create the accounts needed and get to the 'desktop'. Everyhting worked first time, internet sound the lot (I'm impressed, even windows cant configure itself for my sound card). I noticed the grapics were alittle laggy, so I went to display settings. I had initially used the Geforce 4 (generic) setting. The probe only detects my onboard 810 chipset. My card is a Gainward GF4 450mx (which is really a 420). I tried the 810 setting for whatever reason and now I cant get back in.

All I get is a text login prompt, which I can use to login to root but I dont know how to configure the GFX card from here.

I tried StartX, this just fails. I then tried redhat-config-xfree86, this gives an error saying 'Xserver cannot be started trying with fresh config', waits for a bit then fails.

Any ideas, or is a fresh install my best option.

Thx

In order to get decent performance from the Nvidia card, you'll need to install their drivers. The Redhat drivers as you discovered are not optimized.

This doc should help.

http://kb.redhat.com/view.php?eid=130

I don't really have enough info to help you figure out what happened in the first place though.

You need see if you can find a backup of your XF86Config (or XF86Config-4) file, so that you can easily revert it back to the previous settings (before you told it to use the i810). Login as root and enter 'find /etc/ -iname xf86config*' this should find you current configfile, hopefully there will be a backup somewhere nearby.

There should hopefully be a backup of your old XF86Config in the same directory as your current XF86Config (usually '/etc/X11/'), change to this directory ('cd /etc/X11/'). Rename your current config (I find something like 'mv XF86Config XF86Config.$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)' work pretty well, it gives the copy a time stamp). Now copy the backup to whatever the original file was called (e.g. 'cp XF86Config.backup XF86Config').

If you cannot find the backup file then I am sure someone will help you with creating a new XF86Config, or modifying your existing one.

Thanks for the help, I'm gonna go try these out.


I'm not as stuck as I thought as it all works fine when I change my monitor over to the onboard port, so if needed I can still get in. Just need to change my bios settings and it forgets Ive got a GF4. Its all a learning experience tho, lol

Yep all is good.

lol, I can see learning this is gonna be fun...

now, how to get flash to work with netscape hmmmmm........

Which one? 5 is available as tar.gz file at http://www.macromedia.com just download it in the console use
tar xfvz flash-yada.tar.gz
it will create directory flash-yada, change to this dir with cd
cd flash-yada/
and copy lib*.so and Shock*.class files into /usr/lib/netscape/plugins directory as root
/bin/su will give you root access when you type the root password, and cp will copy the files
cp lib*.so Sho*.class /usr/lib/netscape/plugins
Side note: If you wish to have Flash6, Shockwave 8.5, WindowsMedia player 6.4, QuickTime 6 and bunch or others take a look at cross-over plugin from http://www.codeweavers.com It is worth every penny of 25 bucks if you opt to buy it w/o annoying adds about hungry developers at codeweavers :)

lol, this system is beginning to bug me, it all worked fine yesterday. I log out. woke up this morning and now I cant log back in to my account. I can log in to all other accounts for the rest of the family, I can also log in as root but when I use my account it just freezes after loading the windows manager. so I used root to delete my account and group and recreate it but no, still wont work. Does RH8 have a problem with people called 'chris' ? Also whats the difference between gnome and kde. I use gnome as it recommends it for beginners.

I'm supposed to be starting my Java programming course today, and I thought I would at least have this working so I could maybe write the first essay. Looks like I'll have to return to windows to do the job.

Flash doesnt work either. After installing netscape, it doesnt create a plugins direcotry in usr/lib/netscape/plugins. it puts it in usr/local/netscape/plugins. so I copied the 2 files there. typed 'about: plugins' into netscape and it confirms it is installed but it dont work.


I think I could be up for my 6th install of RH. :newbie:
Maybe if I use a workstation install rather than desktop? I dont know and dont understand this, its hard to learn when you cant even login.