I am a total Linux noob, and have what I hope is an elementary question for those of you with more experience.

I just installed RedHat 8.0 on a Dell machine with an ATI Radeon VE with 32MB. I should mention here that the installation process did detect and determine the correct card. At the end of the Anaconda installation, I had several errors flash on the screen as it was shutting down. Unfortunately they went by fast enough that I didn't get them exactly. I believe, however, that they were related to the video card. On reboot, and every reboot since, it goes through what I would imagine is the normal boot procedure. However, the screen goes back and forth from a text login to a blank screen a few times, then it goes to a blue screen, with a lighter blue rectangle that takes up about 75% of the screen. On that screen there are apparenlty two options that you can use arrow keys to go between. However, what I see for those options is just ascii text. If I hit enter a few times, it goes to a single ascii text option in the middle of that lighter blue box. If you hit enter it just returns to text mode login. I tried 'startx', and it fails. The message is along the lines that there is not an appropriate video device.

Does anyone have any adve on where to go from here? I searched the internet and found a similar issue in which the guy had to manually add a line to his XF86Config file to specify the VideoRam in the device section. I tried this to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have been praising open source and want to make the switch, but so far it has been a lesson in banging my head against the wall.