Problem with Installing fedora 7 on an older machine :/
 

I have installed linux on many machines in my life but this is just weird (note i know how to install not configure :P ). I'm trying to install fedora 7 on an older machine with :
500mhz P3 processor
~180 ram (not sure but it is that or above)

20 GB HDD

During the install it says "Not enough ram running text install" and i go through the install smoothly. But when i boot it up for the first time it boots to a command line (?!) does anyone know how to fix this?

PLEASE HELP (I need it for a VPN server badly)!

Can you get a GUI to start-up by typing startx on the command line?

Can you upgrade your ram? Or try a older version of FC, Slackware would run fine with those specs, FC will I think if you have more ram.

What about if the swap partition would be big, would that help?

And i don't get it it runs WinXP normally without any problems, why not fedora ? :(

XP is six years old, Fedora 7 only five months. It would be better to compare between F7 and Vista.

Anyway, the minimal requirement for an F6 install was 256 and it may now even be a bit higher. The thing isn't that it won't run - it will just be rather slow. Using about 512MB of swap may be helpful in pumping of the amount of available memory but it is also slower - a lot - than RAM. The moment that your system starts swapping, you'll notice it right away.

Of course, with limited memory, it may be better not to use Gnome or KDE. The XFCE desktop is far less demanding but it is something you may need to get used to - it looks radically different from what most people are familiar with.

Have you tried startx? Even 180MB should be enough to at least bring up Gnome.

Yes it works thx for that. I have actually set it up so it has 4GB of swap which i think is completely over doing it but u never know. This is my temporary VPN/Domain controller server so i don't want to buy anything for it. It is slow but it is actually not that bad since i'm not running anything on there yet. I will try the XFCE thx for the advice !

ok there is a problem :/ each time i reboot it still puts me into the command line. Is there a way to make it go to XFCE driectly? I'm using this PC via VNC so it is not convenient if i have to connect a monitor each time i try to log in.

ok so you guys suggest on either getting an upgrade/new machine or different version of fedora or linux. So which version will be the most suitable?

It's no doubt that you system isn't configured yet to start a GUI by default. Here is a short article that should help:

http://zzlinux.blogspot.com/2005/02/...2-default.html

4 gigs of swap is complete overkill, 1 gig is almost too much swap

Typical recommendation is to use swap = 2X RAM. The swap is going to thrash like crazy with a big distro if you ever get it to run. A number of small distros would work, slack, vector, damn small, puppy. Check out distrowatch.com. If you're using samba, the samba version is probably more important than the distro.

well i'm not sure :/ So let me describe what i'm trying to do and myabe you will haelp me decide :)

I want to set up linux to:
Be a VPN server for windows and linux (very important)
HTTP/FTP server for all os
and if possible to be a domain controller for both linux and windows.

So now any ideas on what to use?

I'm thinking of using fedora core 4.

Well, yes, I certainly wouldn't try anything higher than FC4; I have the Fedora Core 5 Bible and I see that this version already required 256MB RAM to run well. Unless you prefer a recent distro that uses XFCE by default, of course. Maybe you're not too Ubuntu minded but I think that Xubuntu wouldn't be a bad choice. If you select the alternate install cd, you won't need more than 64MB to install (but 128MB is recommended for it to run well).

I used the alterante CD thing and installed via Text based installation.
When i boot up it puts me into command line (which is not what i want) but when i type "startx" it says i need to be a superuser. So i type "sudo startx" but it asks for password!!! I didn't set the root password yet, so i leave it blank but it will not let me do anything :( any ideas how to solve that?

You use your own user's password for sudo.

"su authentication failure"!!!!

Logged in as Irek
used my pass

typed in "su"
put in my pass

on a reboot tried to log in as root said "incorrect login"

The buntus don't use su or su - but sudo. In other words, there isn't any "root" on a Buntu system. That doesn't mean that it isn't possible to set up a root password, though. You first log in with username and user password and then you type sudo passwd; you will be prompted for a root password. But there isn't any need to, just use sudo wherever you'd use su.

You can start xfce with startxfce4; if the system doesn't pick up from there, you put that in a hidden file in your home directory or you can log in through gdm (see /etc/X11/ for the display manager file).

ok i tried command "sudo startx" still asks for a password so i put in either blank or my pass won't let me in :(

That is puzzling. Are you sure that you are using the same password that you set for your user during install?

Did you install GRUB? Not that it has anything to with your issue, but it will provide a way out if this password issue can't be solved.

well if i can log in doesn't that mean i use the same pass? and i installed grub. can i just start directly to X ?

You can't start x from grub (not to my knowledge as least) but you can set a password by telling grub to boot into single mode. Just append
single
to the line that goes kernel /vmlinuz etc.
When you get a terminal, type passwd and it will prompt you for a root password.

Oh, by the way, have you tried a simple startxfce4 instead of sudo startx?

i actually got to the sudo working (yaya) but... I start the x server and all i see is a gray screen and the command line takes 1/4 of the screen and that's it ...

That means you aren't running xfce yet. That can mean two things: either you xfce wasn't installed - but I have no reason to think that it wasn't - or you need to start x with startxfce4.

so:

Boot up
Log in
and "sudo startxfce4"
put in password and it should work?

ok in case there is no xfce installed what do i do?

ok when i try startxfce4 says command not found :/

OK, let's try and start a log-in screen:

/etc/init.d/gdm start

If gmd is not installed:
sudo apt-get install gdm
then
/etc/init.d/gdm start

You could also select xdm instead; it's a lightweight in comparison but it has more limitations too.

If only a minimal system was installed by mistake:
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
or if you need just the window manager
sudo apt-get install xfce4.

I'd say, give each a try. You appear to have xorg so it's probably just a matter of getting the log-in manager to launch. Going by the error you got, xfce4 may not be installed yet either. With a luck ,the first one or two commands should do the trick.

now i think it is going crazy...
i tried the first one said it is not there
tried installing asks for cd and never detects it
tried installing xubuntu failes
tried installing xfce4 failed

is there anything else i can do?

or is there a way to install from the normal CD without using the live CD cuz it freezes every time when i reach 54%

I'm getting a bit confused now. You mention the livecd but in your previous post you said you used the alternate cd. So which one did you really use to install? I believe that the livecd requires at least 192MB of RAM so that might account for any freezes.

Anyway, the reason that you are asked for the cd is because Xubuntu is set to install its basic stuff from the cd but although that option can be uncommented so that it installs everything from the repositories instead. Now it is quite possible that the cd doesn't have gdm - it is the gnome display manager after all and Xubuntu may have only xdm. In that case you should do:

sudo /etc/init.d/xdm start

Before doing this, it may be a good idea to do a little investigation. Check the output of whereis xdm
and
ps ax | grep xdm
If the latter returns anything at all, xdm is already running; if the first one returns a set of paths, you know that it is at least installed, whether it is running or not.

Let me explain i used the alternate CD because during the live cd it always froze exactly at 54%. but it worked ok as a live cd just the install failed so i'm asking is there a way to install using the livecd cd without actually running the session (use a command to directly without a live cd session). Or is it possible to install it via another computer (network install somehow?

Well, I'm not so sure about the latest versions but it definitely was possible to install without a GUI running. It seems to me that this option was removed, however, and that it has been replaced with the standalone alternate installer.

I'm not aware of any option to do a network install. But even if it were, you'd be doing essentially the same as using the alternate cd. It seems very likely that you'd still end up with a command line instead of a GUI.

But this should help:
Log in from the command line as your user (and without using sudo!), list the contents of your home directory:

ls -al

Check whether you have a .xinitrc file.
If yes, do:
echo "exec xfce4-session" >> ./.xinitrc

If not, do:
echo "#! /usr/bin/env bash" >> ./.xinitrc
echo "exec xfce4-session" >> ./.xinitrc
chmod +x ./.xinitrc

Log out and back in. If it doesn't work, you have either a video problem (unlikely since the livecd appears to work) or you already have a display manager running.

ok i lost my faith... Anybody knows a good linux distro that uses some kind of graphical environment and will work on an older machine? (one that is still supported not like ubuntu 5.10)

So that didn't help? Oh well, I would say, on to Debian Etch. Stable and supported, uses Gnome by default but you can install a different desktop later. It may be somewhat harder to configure, however, but that's almost unavoidable if you try to install something with a GUI on an older system.

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r1/i386/iso-cd/

btw, you need only the first cd (unless you haven't got an internet connection)

Man you scared me i see 20 CD's i cry! man wow... I'll try it :)

Update:
Ok i get errors while trying to install the base system and won't let me continue :/
So i'm trying the Network install and XFCE one maybe they will work. (this is such a pain)...

It seems that you really haven't got any luck with that computer. Did it run Linux before? It's beginning to look as if it has some part that is not 100% Linux compatible. I hope you have better luck with the other install methods, Debian has many. If not, you may want to have a look at Mepis AntiX.

OMFG I finally got it to work!!!!!!! THX for all your help ppl! now it is time to configure :/ crazy stuff :)

(Update)
It works fine but i'm trying to install graphics drivers and it asks to turn off xserver anyone know how to do it?