I'm a newbie but “I'm doing the work – I'm not a slacker” - so this is puzzling to me. I just recently ran up2date on my RH8 system that was running kernel 2.4.18-14. Prior to the update I had no problems with the graphical signon. It appears that up2date compiled a new kernel for me including two new kernel updates that it downloaded. When I start the new kernel 2.4.20-20.8 that up2date added to my grub menu - it locks on what appears to be the startup of xserver. Catch is I can't get out of it with ctl-alt-F1 or BS. I set up a new option on grub to init that same kernel just to level 3 and it works just fine – that is of course until I run serverx. Now what is puzzling me is that as I understand from my reading - the settings for xserver are in /etc/X11/XF86Config – but they stay the same no matter what kernel I load – correct? My assumption is that there must have been a component used in the creation of the new kernel that controls video that is not working properly - or – is not the correct one for my video card and monitor. Video is not modularly loaded as say for instance ethernet “drivers” are – are they? I am continuing my investigations concerning what is happening at init level 5 but aren't those layers kernel independent?

If you use the nvidia drivers, you have to reinstall them whenever you recompile/change your kernel.

The video card is a PowerColor Radeon 7000 32MB DDR - Windows based utilities see it as a belonging to the "Radeon VE Family" - so I've been using "ATI Radeon VE". I can check their site and see if they shed any light on the matter.

.... well I checked and ATI does not have anything as "old" as the 7000 listed under their Linux drivers. I never really installed a "driver" per say - I used the one that anaconda proposed on the inital installation.