I figured after the success of getting RedHat 9.0 dual booting on my laptop I would try to get my copy of SuSE 8.1 onto my desktop. However no matter what I try everytime I try to get the resolution to 1024x768 all I get is a blank screen at boot. This happens if I choose the resolution during install or after I get booted up and change it then.

I have found that once it decides to do the blank screen boot if I choose Linux Safe Settings from the boot menu I can get to a command prompt but so far that has been useless to me because of my lack of Linux knowledge.

The system specs are as follows:

Athlon 1.33
Biostar M7MIA motherboard
128 mb DDR memory(either Samsung or Micron I forget.)
SiS Xabre 400 video card
Realtek based generic NIC
Gerneric 40x CD-Rom
Maxtor 40 gig HDD
Gerneric keyboard
Logitech Marble Mouse
AOC 7ELR 17" monitor

There is a KVM switch on this. It is a Belkin Omni Cube 4 port (F1D094).


Any help would be greatly appreciated. I do not know very much about Linux so please make your answers for a total n00b.

can you post us your /etc/X11/XF86Config or XF86Config-4 here? that's a place to start

Sure if you can tell me how to bring it up.

I have heard support for sis video is poor.

Log in as root and at the prompt type the command:

redhat-config-xfree86

# Configuring X
Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO - video cards
The Linux XFree86 HOWTO
Common X configuring tools:
Debian - dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
Mandrake - XFdrake
Redhat 7.3 down - the setup utility leads to several config tools
Redhat 7.3 up - redhat-config-xfree86
You may have these tools:
XF86Setup
XFree86 -configure
Xconfigurator
xf86cfg
xf86config
xconf

# Redhat links
RedHat Linux Manuals
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
Easier software management: apt4rpm - Red Carpet
RedHat 8.0 Tips & Tricks

# Redhat 7.3 down configuration commands
setup leads to several configuration tools

# Redhat 7.3 up configuration commands
Configure soundcard:
redhat-config-soundcard
Configure X server:
redhat-config-xfree86
Configure network:
redhat-config-network

try this (u got a floppy drive?)

You have to mount the floppy disk before you can write to it, of course.

mount /mnt/floppy

That should mount a formatted floppy disk.

Before taking it out of the drive, command:

umount /mnt/floppy

Sorry but no floppy on that machine. Is there a way to bring it up using a text editor from the command prompt?

If midnight commander is installed, that's an easy way to navigate directories and edit. Try this command

mc

If you get command not found, try

pico -w /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

It said command not found on mc but when I typed in pico -w /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 it borught up the file but it is blank. Do I need to use one of the commands at the bottom?

Sometimes you mistype.

Try these commands

cd /etc/X11
ls

Now, if you see a config file listed there called XF86Config-4 or XF86Config open it with

pico -w <exact name of file and it's case sensitive>

If there is no configuration file there, you will have to create it with one of the x configuring tools

You may have these tools:
redhat-config-xfree86
XF86Setup
XFree86 -configure
Xconfigurator
xf86cfg
xf86config
xconf

WOOHOO!!!! Got a bunch of text now. (mine does not have the -4) Now what am I looking for?

BTW, if you can find midnight commander on your install disk or can download and install it somehow, it is well worth it

mc-<version number>.rpm will be the file name you are looking for.

To install:

cd /where/file/is
rpm -Uvh mc-*.rpm

Then you can use it.

Are you dual booting? If you have a fat32 filesystem, you could:

cat /etc/X11/XF86Config > /mnt/<window partition name>/XF86Config.txt

Then post it here and we could examine it.

Also, the error file for X sessions would be handy

cat /home/<user>/.xsession-errors /mnt/<window partition name>/x-errors.txt

If you have been working as root only attempting to startx, post root's file instead.

cat /root/.xsession-errors /mnt/<window partition name>/x-errors.txt

I think I will give up again for tonight. Maybe tomorrow we can get this straightend out. Thanks for all the help so far.