I use fedora core 3 with a brand new samsung 19" monitopr at a resolution of 1280 * 960.

I just lugged my pc home & found the only monitor here is an old 15" IBM P50 hich will do 1024 * 768 at a push.

Linux boots fine but the screen goes blank and the green light on the monitor blinks on and off when it switches to GUI during boot.

Presumably this is because the monitor cannot handle the resolution linux is trying to force on it. I kinow its possible to define the screen rsolution to be used but cant remember what file to edit & where. I have a bootdisk so ican access & edit all the files on the disk. Can someone tell me how to do this.

Or give me another way to fix the problem. e.g. make linux look for a new monitor.

Any help appreciated, thanks in advance.

usually this is the file /etc/X11/xfree86.conf or /etc/X11/xorg.conf, depending on wich X server is used. you can boot in runlevel 3 (text mode) to edit this file. you may configure the X server using one of this commands also:
for XFree86: XF68config or XF86cfg
for X.org: xorgconfig or xorgcfg

hope this helps,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

Thanks edited the x.org config file. Simply removed the entries that allowed higher resolutions. Then changed the monitor in GUI.

Incidentally how do i make it boot to runlevel 3?

to boot into another runlevel than the default, you need to give the runlevel number as kernel parameter. if you use LILO, you can just enter the kernel name at the boot prompt with ' 3' (without quotes) after it. I'm not sure about GRUB, thought you have to press 'e' at boot prompt to change the kernel parameters. If you don't get a prompt on booting the computer, the bootloader is configured to immidiatly boot into linux. In that case you have to use a key combination (something like CTRL+ALT+SHIFT or just SHIFT I thought) to get into the prompt.

For any more information you should look in the man pages... 'man grub' or 'man lilo' (man lilo.conf).

greetz,
.-=~ iluvatar ~=-.

Edit /etc/inittab using your favorite text editor. Near the top you will find a line:
Change the "5" to a "3" and reboot. From now until you change it back to a "5", it will boot into text mode. At this point, you can repair any problems in your configuration. To start X, type
When you log off, it will return you to text mode.

Alternatively, if you want to run a display manager that respawns back to a graphics login screen each time you log out, instead of "startx" execute the display manager of your choice, "xdm", "kdm", "gdm", etc...

I like booting to level 3 because I never know ahead of time when I am going to screw something up.