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I have a Red Hat 9 system that was running great this morning. I ran the autoupdate/patches that it told me to and now it will not boot into the GUI. It just cycles back and forth from a black screen to the root login screen. The other thing I did was to configure LDAP for Edirectory on it, but I have shut that off via console one from another server.
Any ideas.
"It just cycles back and forth from a black screen to the root login screen."
This means that your startx command is failing. This could be any one of a lot of possible problems with X Window. I would start by reconfiguring /etc/X11/XF86Config and see if the problem is in there.
Of course, first you have to get into your system to do any diagnosis. I would try to go to an alternate console with:
<ctrl> <alt> <F3>
...what about going to another console, with Ctrl+Alt+F4, login as normal user, and run "startx". You'll get a lot of useful / helpful debug messages. Perhaps your driver is missing, caused by an kernel update.
You can also view /var/log/XFree86.<display>.log
Error- and warning-messages start with (WW) and (EE). Use the program "less" to view it, because it's quite huge.
If you jump to yet another console, you can run tail+grep, to monitor the file, and filter all errors. tail keeps monitoring the file until you press control+c tail -f /var/log/XFree86.0.log | grep -E "\((WW|EE)\)"
Then go back to the previous console, and type startx.
There might be something you can relate to the /etc/X11/XF86Config file.
Perhaps the first thing to do is to get your system to where it will boot into command line mode. Try editing /etc/inittab and changing the default run level to 3. Change a line that says:
Originally posted by rbayne ok, got there by booting to the cd and running linux repari. I can see the XF86config file in vi. What the heck am I looking for? :-)
Have you tried to produce the debugging output, as I've explained in my previous post?
ie. run "startx" and see what it tells, and watch the log files.
hello I am curious were you change the defualt level at , in the grub ? .. BEcuase my machine isa standlone trying to boot in lvevel 5 and I think if I can change to level 3 it will boot the GUI . So if anyone can be a bit more precise I would be greatful .
" I think if I can change to level 3 it will boot the GUI . "
You can change the run level by using the init command. To change to run level 3, log in as root and type in:
init 3
You can permantly change your default run level by changing /etc/inittab. Log in as root and edit /etc/inittab. Change the line:
id:5:initdefault:
to
id:3:initdefault:
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