GRUB, Virtual Desktop, KDE in Red Hat 9
 

Three questions:

1) How can I switch from GNOME to KDE in Red Hat 9?
2) How do I edit GRUB to add Debian and Slackware (hda7 and hda8 respectively).
3) I am not ready for the larger-than-the-screen-desktop. How can I get the whole image on the screen at once instead of having to mouse over all of the time?

I am a newbie, so go easy, and please add detail.

Thanks. Sean.

1) can you not just logout, then when you're back at the login screen choose 'session -> kde' and log back in. You can make kde default from here also if you are so inclined.

2) edit grub.conf. You will see the entry for redhat, just mimic it for your other distros, replacing the paths with the correct ones. I would need to know your partition scheme to do it for you but here is an example:
This will only work if you move your kernels to redhats /boot partition, which is ok because you don't need 3 /boots's anyway right...

3) dunno, I think it has to do with X's virtual desktop but it may be a new redhat thing. Sorry.

Thanks
 

Wow, thanks alot. You were right on with the grub. How did you know what to call the different kernels?

The virtual desktop goes away when I disconnect the monitor and just use the laptop screen. Tomorrow, I will try all the settings when I get back to work.

The session was there, I just didn't see it because of the virtual desktop. I am at home with the laptop now and I saw it as soon as it booted.

You da man!

One question though. Do I have to move the kernels to /boot? Or can I have the grub point to the different hda points?

If I do have to, how do I move a kernel? And everything still works?

Thanks again. Sean.

If you mount the other partitions you can use things like:
/mnt/hdb1/boot/
Works for Lilo at least, but it might only need to look at these when you run lilo, I know you dont need to run grub after changes so you'd have to be sure the partitions are always mounted maybe :)

The virtual desktop could be due to incorrectly configured X.

I just made them up, they should be what the kernels are actually called. You will need to rename them so that all three aren't named vmlinuz or whatever, or grub will be confused. Doesn't matter what they are called as long as each has a different name.

No, you don't, but It is a lot easier. And I should say just copy them, so you have backups.

You can specify which drive and partition they are on using "root (hd0,0)". Grub counts from zero so (hd0,0) is actually hda1 (where your /boot is, right?), and (hd2,5) would be hdc4 ( I think...ha ha). You also need to keep in mind that some bios's need the kernel to be located in the first 500MB of your hard drive. In my opinion it is neater and easier to have all your kernels in the same place.

Again, safer to copy them than move them as I first mentioned.

You will need to mount /dev/hda7 and /dev/hda8 to access the kernels (assuming you have redhat booted at the time), cd to where each kernel is, then simply:
Remember that vmlinuz may not be the actual name of your kernel, and you can change deb_kernel to whatever you want.