I'm truly a newb, so bear with me.

I have installed Redhat 8. I have set the refresh rate to 85 (with the graphical interface). Upon reboot, just before the login screen X crashes.

I believe I need to fix this by running x86config, but I dont even know how to boot to the command line to get to the program.

Also, is there a Safe Mode equivalent?

There's no such thing as "safe mode" :}

However, you can easily get to a terminal
window by giving lilo the parameter "single"
on the lilo prompt...

Cheers,
Tink

I'm using Grub.

My options are 'e' to edit the command before booting, 'a' modify kernel argument, or 'c' for a command line. I went to the command line. Tab showed me Terminal but I dont know how to use it. Just typing terminal did nothing.

Thanks for the reply.

Redhat 8 is automatically set to boot to a graphical interface. How to I boot to a command line.

Sorry, I don't know grub ...

But as for the console :)
just login as root

From the command line try running
XFree86 -configure

That will then either create a new config-file in
/root/ and tell you how to activate it or spit out
a bunch of errors ...

In the first case, run the command it says, if X is all good
you're fine.
In the second case: post the errors

Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: If you're really moving from Windows to Linux you
should try to do as little as possible from the GUI. The console
is the *real* beauty of Linux ;) ... and once you set-up a bunch
of boxes via telnet/ssh you'll understand what I mean ;)

No problem
just after getting the RedHat up and running press ctrl alter and f2 keys simultaneously to get another instance of linux. login as root.
type in xdm and set the system boot in text mode instead of graphical one. This also can be done by tweaking in x-window interface.

Hope it should solve the trouble.
Thanks
Rajesh.