No GUI after first install, crazy error screen
 

hi... i installed red hat 9.0 tonight. i must have selected the wrong vid driver during install. when it booted for the first time, it was flashing and went to a screen that was just a light blue rectangle with the words "yes" and "no". i tried clicking both but it brings me to the cli. i can login using the "root" acct. i could just reinstall but id like to see how to properly troubleshoot this. any ideas on how to get to the desktop? this is my first time using redhat as you can probably tell.

:confused: :confused: :confused:

Hi,

and welcome to LQ!

Try running Xconfigurator


Cheers,
Tink

If you can login into system you can run "xorgconf", "X -configure" or manually edit the xorg.conf file.
If you use "X -configure" it makes you a xorg.conf.new file in /root. You then need to copy it to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and now issue "startx".

I'm not sure if Red Hat uses the Xorg but most commonly its found in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll that file to the part with device and there should be line like
"Driver" "ati" if you use ati card.

Other drivers you could use are "nv" for nvidia, "ati" for ATI card, "vesa" is kinda safe choice. You need to install correct display drivers though.

excellent. thanks guys... i will go try that.

It's probably using XFree86 instead of X.org. The config file will thus be something like XF86Config (located in /etc/X11), though I'm unsure of the exact name.

Was there any particular reason you installed Red Hat 9 and not a newer distro?

well , i wanted to learn it to try to get a job. i guess thats not the one to use?


:confused: :confused: :confused:

It's just that Red Hat 9 is really old (and thus no longer supported by Red Hat.. you won't get updates for one thing) and you're probably likely to run into problems installing newer software. You'd probably be better off with a newer distro.

is the redhat enterprise the one companies use? can you suggest one?

Try Fedora Core. It's red hat based so you get hang of it. It really doesn't matter too much which distro you use as they all are basicly the same.

Slackware would be my choice of learning distro, though. It doesn't do anything itself and leaves the user in full control on what's happening on the system.