init 5 error will not start gome UI
 

I have installed centos 5 64bit server. The graphical install went just fine. Same goes for the first boot. Once the first boot made me reboot, that is where I have the problem. The os starts fine I get the graphical startup, I see all the services starting. I then am prompted at a shell login. Normally I should be loaded into my gnome desktop. I just sit at the login prompt. So I log in as root. Then issue a startx and I am told that the server is already running.

If I change the init to 3 and then restart the server, at the shell I issue startx and all is fine.
Once I change the run level back to 5 I have the same problem.

Perhaps your gdm (or whatever you use) is actually already running, just on a different tty than what you see…
Try cycling through your ttys (Alt-Right) until you come back to your original. If, along the way, you passed the graphical login screen, it seems it actually is running.

Now, the only problem is to figure out why it doesn’t just stay at the graphical login (i.e., why does it insist on changing vt).

You are correct! A few taps of the Alt-right, and blam! I have my graphical login screen. Thanks for that tip! Now I just have to figure out why it is changing screens. Maybe I will report it as a bug. It has only happened on this one computer. In my Vm I have no problems. I think I will try the x86 version and see if I can recreate the problem.

If you really need to have it change terminal after starting, you might try putting a “chvt 7” (use whatever number works) somewhere in the boot sequence. See also: man 1 chvt

Is there a start up file that changes the different vts? I was loking at the kick start and saw all the screen changes. Does anyone know if there is a file for the boot that I can change? Or do I have to declare it in grub?

Well I ended up adding chvt 7 in the /etc/rc.local file and that did the trick. But I am still curious if there is another file that just wasn't formated properly at the time of the install.